The Reason to Fight
by climax
Summary: Scroll 08: The Island Of Iron Fine. But I won't be responsible if you're injured or dead. My job is to investigate this island, not protecting my client, said Neji plainly.
1. Scroll 01: The Mystery of Naruto's Birth

**THE REASON TO FIGHT**

A Naruto fic by: climax

Disclaimer: My name is the one that is sticking at Naruto mangas if I own Naruto, not Masashi-sensei. And Naruto will be MUCH cuter.

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Summary: Naruto was back from his capture. The kyuubi was gone and left him as a weak vessel. How will he deal with it?

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Scroll 01: The Mystery of Naruto's Birth

It was a week after Naruto's capture. Tsunade had mobilized all ninja available in search of him including Sakura. The pink haired shinobi was combing a forest near the border of Konoha's region. She had checked it three times but she couldn't stop hoping if Naruto would pop up and shouting that he was hungry and ready to prey on many bowls of ramen. But that hope had been remaining as dream. No one, even the best search team, found any sign of that blonde whereabouts.

After a while she decided to rest for a while. She sat on the floor of grass somewhere in the dense forest. She was going to eat her lunch (odango, yummy!) when a sound of leaf rustle came. She went alert. Was it an enemy? A friend? Or maybe… Naruto? Either way, she prepared her weapon in case it was neither friend nor Naruto.

But none of her expectations were right. It was a small fox kit. It came out from the bushes and stared Sakura with huge, curious eyes. After made sure the fox was not a genjutsu, she let out a relieved sigh and lower her weapon.

"You shouldn't startle me like that. What if I attacked you?" she said. Then she felt it was stupid to talk to an innocent animal that would never understand her. She decided to sit, ignore the fox, and enjoy her lunch.

A few minutes later, she looked back to where the fox sat or… had been sitting. It continuously stared Sakura with cute, round eyes as if it was asking something. "What are you looking at?" Then Sakura realized that it was not her that was stared. The sweet dumplings of her lunch were the one.

She sighed. "Fine. There." She placed a stick of dumplings on the earth, some meters from her place. Then she pretended to give her attention to her lunch. In the corner of her eyes, she watched the fox kit moved towards the dumpling slowly, unsurely, or shyly. Then the fox decided to grab the dumplings by its tiny fangs and vanished to the bushes.

Sakura smiled. The fox reminded her of someone. But before she could decide who, another sound interrupted her thought. This time it was a green haired boy with black blindfold on his eyes. He carried a large bow that was nearly as tall as him. His black, sleeveless shirt was paired with a pair of grey shorts and black fingerless gloves. His large blue scarf —that was decorated with an iron plate with Konoha's symbol— almost reached the ground.

Sakura's eyes were used to that attire and she saw no genjutsu so she felt it was no use to pull a weapon.

"You found something?" the boy asked.

"The forest is green as always, a fox kit that want my lunch, and you," Sakura said with a bored tone. It was better than said nothing.

"That's not funny," said the boy plainly.

"Who said it is?" asked Sakura. "How about you Mr. Ice-Cube?"

"My name is Rhaera. R-H-A-E-R-A, not Ice-cube," the boy named Rhaera protested with his plain tone.

Knowing it was 'no', Sakura swallowed her last dumpling then stood up. "I'm going for another stroll. Who knows he would pop up from one of the bushes and—"

A rustle of bushes' leaf interrupted Sakura (again). They all turned and saw a blonde came out of the bushes. Not long the blonde fainted. It didn't take a genius to realize who it was.

Shocked, Sakura unconsciously finished her sentence…

"—fainted."

…before screaming…

"NARUTO!"

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Sakura was squeezing her fingers worriedly and impatiently. She and Rhaera without second thought barged into Tsunade's office with Naruto in tow and screamed hysterically (though Rhaera was not) for Tsunade to help the blonde. The result of that thoughtless act was a nearly buried by paper Tsunade. The poor Hokage was doing her paperwork when Sakura and the archer suddenly enter her office without a knock. But the Hokage didn't have the heart to angry when she saw Sakura's mixture of happiness, worried, and pleading face not to mention seeing Naruto.

And here she was, waiting for Tsunade to finish her check on Naruto. She was worried if Naruto's life in danger or something. Rhaera was gone in order to tell everyone that knows Naruto.

"Sakura!"

Iruka's voice called her name. She turned to see Iruka came with Kakashi, Hinata, Ino, and the others. Rhaera was the last.

"I :gasp: heard from Rhaera :gasp: that Naruto was found. Where is he?" gasped Iruka. From the looks of it, it seemed that he did some D class mission before Rhaera came.

"Sakura-san, is Naruto-kun all right?" asked Hinata when Sakura didn't answer Iruka's question.

Sakura bit her lip. She was nearly crying. She already lost Sasuke and she didn't want to lose Naruto. True that she likes Sasuke better than Naruto but still… she didn't want to lose the teammate that has gone through happy and sad. She, Sasuke, and Naruto were like brothers and sister with Kakashi as their parent. She neither had brother nor sister. So Naruto and Sasuke had become her brothers. Come on! You are a ninja! You are not supposed to reveal your emotion, let alone crying! She told herself.

"He…" she began. "He is in the room before the door beside me. Tsunade is checking him. I…" she gulped. "…don't know how he is or is he going to be all right…"

Iruka's and the others face were in the mixture of relieved, confused, and worried. They didn't know if they should jump for joy of Naruto's return or worried for his not-so-well being. As if on cue, Tsunade came out of the room and sighed tiredly. They immediately surrounded the female Hokage and gave her a rain of questions.

"Tsunade-sama! How is Naruto? Is he okay? Or will he be okay?" Iruka was the first who bombarded her with questions. The rest were either eyeing her questioningly or did the same as Iruka.

Rhaera saved Tsunade by coughed softly. He was the only one who didn't surround Tsunade. But Tsunade could tell that he was worried too. "Naruto is going to be okay." All of them (except Rhaera and Tsunade) sighed with relief. "But he is still weak. I don't want all of you enter the room for now. You all are to leave until tomorrow. Iruka and Kakashi…" she turned to the two adult shinobi. "I want to have words with you two, privately."

Iruka and Kakashi followed Tsunade to her office. After the door closed, Tsunade ordered them to sit in front of her desk meanwhile herself sat behind her desk, facing them with miserable expression.

"What are you going to tell us, Hokage-sama?" asked Kakashi.

The Hokage closed her eyes. Should she tell them? Even she didn't, they would figure it sooner or later. But… how will she tell them?

"Is the Kyuubi—?" Kakashi didn't need to continue.

Tsunade nodded. "Yes. As we have been afraid of, the seal is gone from Naruto's stomach. Even I tried my best like covering the other kids' identity as chuunin to guard him in chuunin exam." That's right. Sakura and the others were chuunin already —some of them even jounin— but Tsunade commanded them to sneak into the chuunin exam as genin. She told them it was to watch the progress of the exam but the truth was totally different. "But that's not I want to tell you."

"Then what?" asked Iruka impatiently.

"I'm afraid…" she gulped, "Naruto can't obtain his dream…"

Of course, Iruka was angry and confused. "Why? Isn't the Kyuubi gone now? It should be easier for him to be Hokage without people afraid of him!" he said as he stood up.

Kakashi placed a hand on Iruka's shoulder. "Iruka calm down! She isn't finished yet!" Iruka strained his anger though his heart told him to scream as loud as possible to Tsunade. "Good, now sit." Iruka complied.

"You may right, but as you know, the demon fox is both blessing and curse for Naruto." She placed her arms under her chin to support her head and eyed the chuunin and jounin in front of her.

"What are you trying to tell us?" asked Kakashi suspiciously.

She licked her dry lips. "There is… another truth behind Naruto's birth…" it was very hard to let the words slipped from her lips. Her heart was still battling between tell them or not. But she decided it was now or never.

"What could it be?" asked Iruka.

Suddenly, the papers she hated on her desk were the most interesting thing in the world so she stared them. "I… was in that place… when Naruto's mother bore him. In fact, I was the obstetrician. When he came to the world I was…" her voice became hoarse. "…so happy. He was a cute baby. Blonde and silky hair, beautiful blue eyes… just like his father's…"

Kakashi and Iruka became silent. It wasn't everyday to see a Hokage telling a story that had deeply engraved itself on her memory.

She smiled sadly and dreamily. "Back then, I didn't know what kind of fate that was waiting for him. What concerned me was there and then. I hoped he was a healthy baby with no physical defect, knowing how strong his father and how beautiful his mother. But I was wrong…"

"What happened?" asked Iruka frightenedly.

"His body was suffering a strange fragileness."

Kakashi and Iruka were confused. They looked at each other before asking, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he was very weak. You have to hold him gently or you would bruise him. Let alone if he fell. I was afraid if he was easily sick too. I was very frustrated. I've never seen such strange symptoms so I didn't know how I should deal it. I even gave up hope. There's no way he could live with such a weak body. It was a two percent possibility he would live," she said as she looked down, letting her bangs hid her eyes.

"Then, how could he—?" asked Iruka.

"Live until now? When I told his father about this, he was very shocked. But how could he got that crazy idea, I'd never know…"

"He offered Naruto as the Kyuubi container, didn't he?" asked Kakashi. His tone was colder than he was mean to.

Tsunade nodded. "He said that there was a big chance that the Kyuubi would make his son's life much longer, judging how big its chakra. I tried to stop him saying that there was no way that Naruto could bear such a big amount of chakra. He was a baby, with such a weak body too. But he cockily said that he is a genius and because of that I didn't need to worry. And he…" this was the hardest part, "said that he wouldn't let his son die before seeing Konoha, the village he loved so much."

Tsunade would cry if she wasn't one of the three Sannin or Hokage. Remembering all of the late people's last moment was always painful. She knew it very well since she was a medical ninja. The people she couldn't save have many kinds of expression. Some smiled peacefully, some had submit to their fate, some in pain, some in sadness, and many other expression. She envied how could Naruto's father smiled cockily as if he wasn't going to face the danger that would bring him to his death.

"Then, the Kyuubi was sealed. I checked his health and I found that he was as healthy as a normal human could be. I felt… many things— happy, satisfied, and many other things," said Tsunade. She stopped when Kakashi raised his hand. She nodded to allow the jounin asked his question.

"If I didn't mistaken, at that time you were missing, right? How could you be there?" asked the jounin. Iruka's eyes widened. How could he miss that fact?

Tsunade smiled sadly and groggily. "Well, you know how full of surprise Naruto and his father are… that man managed to find me."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "You are hiding something."

Tsunade's eyes suddenly became sharp. "You are not allowed to let a word from here slipped out of your mind or this room. You got that?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," answered the two men at the same time.

"You may leave."

The two men left the office. Tsunade sighed tiredly and plopped to her chair. Unknown by them, there was an unwanted guest that had been eavesdropping to them from the beginning.

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"Are you sure of this?" asked Rhaera to a little girl looked around eight, with glowing green body. Sure she was no human. They were on the hospital roof so no one could hear them.

"Of course! I've heard it with my own ears, there is no mistake!" exclaimed the girl.

Rhaera sighed. "The advantage being a soul, eh? Won't be noticed by anybody unless he is an onmyouji…"

She stared Rhaera with filthy look. "I take that as a compliment…"

But she was ignored by Rhaera who was deeply thinking something. After a moment, he began to talk.

"Akaki, I need you to bring me—" he whispered the rest to Akaki's ear. Akaki's green eyes widened. She stared at Rhaera, wondered if the boy's brain had grown tentacles.

"WHAT! That's — that's — that's… IMPOSSIBLE! I can't and WON'T do that! Not now, not in the rest of my life!" she screamed.

Rhaera took a deep breath to calm him self. "Akaki, I need _that_ thing now. Bring it to me or I'll seal you."

Akaki was more frightened than ever now. "Bu—but! You KNOW it's impossible to even touch it! Judging from how secure it's guarded…"

"That's why," Rhaera took something from his right ear and gave it to Akaki. It was a black rectangular earring that was hidden behind his bangs. "You'll need this."

"What kind of skill an earring has to guard me?" Akaki whined.

If Rhaera had take off his blindfold, his eyes would look sharp. "Don't question your master. If you were interrogated, tell them that I'm the one who is responsible. You are free to blame me."

Akaki still looked unsure. "Really?" she asked hopefully and worriedly.

Rhaera finally snapped. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

She grumbled. "Fine." And she flew off to the sky, for the sake of her work.

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Naruto opened his eyes. His eyes felt heavy and it was a bit hard to open it. But he managed to open it. He heard some voices from his sides. It sounded so distant.

"…Hey! He is awake!"

"Shh!"

"Can Akamaru lick him so he will awake?"

**SMACK!**

"Ow! Hey! That's the way Akamaru wake me!"

"Do you think it would work to Naruto!"

"Well…"

Finally, Naruto managed to fully open his eyes. His vision was a bit blurry. But soon, he saw that it was Ino and Kiba that had been arguing.

"Afternoon, sleeping beauty! How do you feel?" asked Kiba cheerfully.

Another smack was received from Ino. "Keep your voice down! Sakura is sleeping!"

Kiba rubbed his head while whining, "How could I keep my voice down when you are keeping smacking me?"

"Woof!" Akamaru barked, agree with his master. The dog was in his master's jacket so the smack from Ino kept landing on Kiba's head.

"Ignore him. Do you want to drink something?" asked Ino in a sweet voice, different from the one she used to scold Kiba.

Realizing that his throat was dry, Naruto nodded slightly. Ino quickly took a glass of water and helped Naruto to drink it. Naruto drank slowly but surely. His throat felt good when the water flowed through his mouth to his stomach. He managed to finish half of the glass before he thought it was enough. Ino got this and took her hand with the glass off from Naruto.

"Where… am I?" it was the first question that came up to his mind.

"One of the hospital bedrooms," answered Kiba. "You had been sleeping peacefully in half and two days, while we were worried for your well being."

"I'm sorry," said Naruto.

"Hey, don't say sorry to me. I don't need it. You should apologize to Sakura," said Kiba with a bored tone.

Ino nodded. "I agree with him, for once. Sakura has been watching for you since Tsunade allowed us to visit you and that was yesterday morning. She would stay awake with dark circles on her eyes now if I didn't tell her to take a nap."

Now Naruto looked guiltier than ever. Then Ino decided to change the topic.

"By the way, how are you feeling?" she asked.

"Uumm… tired." Naruto said simply.

"Only that?" Kiba asked unbelievably. "You should feel relieved or something! You were being kidnapped by some err… weird and surely bad guy and you survived! If you were unlucky, you could die!"

"Kiba!" hissed Ino sharply, with both tone and eyes.

"It's okay. He is right. Maybe I'm too tired to feel relieved," said Naruto with a slight smile.

Kiba looked at him as if Naruto has done something impossible. "That's not like you."

"Huh?" asked Naruto.

"To be forgiving, I mean…" Kiba continued.

"He is right. What's wrong with you, Naruto? Do you feel sick?" asked Ino worriedly. The last thing she wanted was an already worried Sakura to be worried more.

"I don't know. I don't feel sick. I just feel tired but not sleepy. Nothing else," the blonde said.

Before Ino or Kiba could say something, they heard a groan from one of the room chairs. It was Sakura. She had been sleeping on the chair and Naruto took no notice. Her neck must be feeling sore, judging from her sleeping position.

"Nggh… what's happening?" she asked groggily as her hand rubbed her eyes to shake off the remnants of her sleep.

"Sakura! Sweet news! Naruto has awakened!" she said with a style that was similar to an angel telling the people that God is coming.

"Oohh…" she said. Her mind still didn't aware. When her memories showered back and Ino's sentences sank to her mind, she suddenly stood up, nearly knocking her chair. "WHAT!" her eyes darted and then fell on the laying figure on the bed that was blinking his eyes, staring at her with a slight smile of nervousness.

"Naruto! You are awake!" Sakura squealed as she ran towards the blonde, managing give the boy a deadly hug, which was luckily for the blonde, stopped by Tsunade, who suddenly appeared from no where and 'touched' Sakura's forehead to stop the girl's move.

"Where is Rhaera?" asked Tsunade.

"How should I know?" said Sakura almost rudely. She knew better not to make Tsunade angry.

"He is at the roof maybe. He's somehow fallen in love of roofs," said Kiba.

"Then go and get him. Ino and Sakura, you two call Iruka, Kakashi, Hinata, and the other chuunin to here. I want to talk about something important," commanded Tsunade.

"Roger," said Kiba.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," replied the two youngest kunoichi and all of them went out of the room.

"The other chuunin?" asked Naruto with a confused tone. Oh yes, he didn't know yet, thought Tsunade.

The fifth Hokage took a sit where it was the one Ino sat previously. Then looked at Naruto intently as if she looked quite hard to him, she would know how bad or good Naruto's condition was.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Tired." Naruto answered with the same answer he gave to Ino and Kiba.

Tsunade sighed. Her expression told that she was expecting this kind of answer. But instead of questioning that, he asked another question.

"Tsunade-baba, what do you mean with 'the other chuunin'?" asked Naruto.

Tsunade looked at him with a look that was saying 'this is what I fear'. "I mean, Sakura and the others."

Naruto looked very shocked. "They are… chuunin? Even thick-brows and that archer?"

Tsunade knew that he asked about Lee and Rhaera. She nodded.

"Then why—?" asked Naruto. He didn't have either the courage or power to say it. How could many chuunin participate again in the chuunin exam? And why?

"I know what you are meaning. I did it. It was mean to guard you. But at the end it's a fail attempt, right?" she said as she smiled a losing smile.

Naruto looked as if the world was going to end tomorrow. "Then they know that I—"

He was interrupted by Tsunade's shook of head. "No. I didn't tell them. I told them that they were going to participate for the chuunin exam to watch the progress. I slip no words about you." Naruto sighed with relieve. "But…" she continued, "Maybe sooner or later, we have to."

As if it was set perfectly by a scenario, right after Tsunade finished her sentence Kiba barged into the room, nearly dragging a green haired archer.

"Here. I bring your order. Satisfied?" Kiba asked rudely. It seemed that he had a hard time to bring Rhaera here. But he said nothing about that meanwhile Rhaera remained expressionless.

Tsunade smiled. "Good. Now all we have to do is to wait for Sakura and the others."

They didn't have to wait long. Sakura and Ino back with Iruka, Kakashi, Hinata, Lee, and the other friends. They all have the same expression of confusion on their face. Why the fifth Hokage called them to assemble in Naruto's room? Tsunade owed some explanation to them.

Tsunade clapped her hands. "Ok. Now that you all here, I think you can begin explaining, Rhaera."

That, startled everybody especially Rhaera. But the archer seemed to expect it so he calmed down faster than the others.

"Which one?" he plainly asked to Tsunade.

"Everything. You can begin with what's the meaning of the onmyouji you mentioned to the kidnapper," Tsunade answered.

Everybody stared at Rhaera, waiting for an answer. Feeling that stare, Rhaera wasted no time to think if he was going to tell them or not. Oh well, they would need to know anyway.

"As I said in the chuunin exam, an onmyouji is a practitioner of soul and nature art. Everything about soul and nature are studied by an onmyouji. The most important requirement to be an onmyouji cadet is the ability of hearing, seeing, or sensing soul. If you didn't have one of those abilities, you can't be an onmyouji. Well, that's the short definition of onmyouji," said Rhaera.

"Then… what's the duty of this onmyouji person? I mean, like we ninjas, they should have some jobs or duties…" asked Tsunade.

Rhaera nodded. "Yes, we have. Mainly, our duties are escorting died people's spirits, sending stray demons back to hell, calming souls that aren't rest in peace, and the most important, try to balance the connection between human, soul, demon, and nature. All of those duties I mentioned earlier are included in our duty to serve the God."

Tsunade nodded in understanding. "I got it. So, who is the one that kidnapped Naruto?"

"I don't know him. But maybe he's one of the…" suddenly Rhaera hissed and clutched his head. "Shit! My memories are still foggy!"

"The rebels of Reigakure(1)…"

"Yes that's right! Uh— what the—?" Rhaera trailed off as he turned to face the speaker. Everybody did the same thing. They all surprised that it was Naruto who spoke the words.

"N-Naruto, how could you—?" gasped Sakura.

"I overheard them. They were talking something about attacking the Reigakure village using the Kyuubi," Naruto said.

Neji, who had been silent, suddenly shouted, "Wait a minute! Isn't the Kyuubi already dead! How could they use a dead demon to attack a village?"

Tsunade and Naruto's face paled. This was what they feared. Tsunade looked at Naruto, asking if she could tell them. Naruto had no choice but nodded. They needed to know and they'd figure it out eventually anyway. "The Kyuubi is never dead," said Tsunade.

"WHAT?" everybody except Tsunade, Naruto, Iruka, Kakashi and Rhaera (who appeared already knew this) exclaimed.

"If it's still alive, where has it been? And what it had been doing?" asked a very surprised Lee.

"It's sealed. I mean, it was…" replied Tsunade.

"Where?" asked Ino.

"In me," Naruto answered shortly.

Almost everybody stared at him with disbelief.

"Come on, Naruto. Don't be joking. This isn't the time," said Kiba as he waved his hand.

But Kiba didn't notice the determination in Naruto's eyes. "I'm not joking. Do you think why I'm kidnapped? Do you think why the adults hate me?"

"Uuhh…" Kiba found no answer that was more match than the fact that Naruto was the Kyuubi bearer.

"Then, now the Kyuubi is…" Lee trailed off.

"As you expected, right in their hands," said Tsunade.

"You gotta be kidding," hissed Kiba.

"What for in this kind of situation?" asked Tsunade.

Everybody fell silent. They didn't know what to do next. Judging from the situation, the worst thing they could expect was the Kyuubi attacked the village or another. Of course they had to stop it, but how?

"What are we going to do? Tell the village that nightmare is back?" asked Kakashi.

Tsunade shook her head. "No, that's a bad idea. The last thing I want is the villagers panicking and go out from this village, leave Konoha defenseless. That's what the foe villages exactly want."

"There is no safe place when the Kyuubi is around…" said Iruka. Everybody looked at him with a disappointed looks but had no choice because what he said was right.

"We end this conversation now. You guys…" Tsunade stared all the faces. "…must keep this conversation as a secret. Any leaked information and you guys are the ones I question firstly. Understand?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," replied everybody. Then they started to leave. Rhaera, who was the closest to the door, was the first one that left the room. But before he could leave the room completely, Hinata, who had been silent through the conversation, stopped him.

"Wait! Rhaera-san!"

Rhaera stopped just at the door. "What?" he asked, turning his head to Hinata

"Anoo… you said that onmyouji is a practitioner of the soul and nature art, right? And you are an onmyouji, right?" asked Hinata.

"Yes, for both of the questions."

"Then…" she nervously stared at Rhaera. "…you can… bring dead people's soul to here… right?"

That question had a big influence for everybody. Tsunade quickly turned her head to Rhaera with startled look, Iruka's eyes widen, Kakashi's Icha-Icha Tactics book dropped from his grasp, Neji with disbelief look at Hinata, and many other reactions.

Rhaera was silent for a moment. Then he answered, "Yes, I can."

Hinata's eyes looked hopeful. "Then—!"

"But not that easy," Rhaera continued.

Hinata looked disappointed. "Why?" she asked.

"To call it is an easy thing but to maintain it in this world is a troublesome thing. I need a medium to maintain a called soul," explained the archer.

"What is… a medium?" asked Hinata.

"A person who has a body that is strong enough to bear two souls in his or her body. Medium is very rare. Even in Reigakure," explained Rhaera.

"Then why don't you use your own body?" asked Kiba.

"It is tiring to maintain two souls in a body. Your body won't last long, except in Naruto's case, the Kyuubi is a soul was sealed since he was baby so there was no refusing act from the body. It's because when someone is still a baby, the body is still pure and easy to adapt. Besides, a dead soul that obtained a body often refuses to go back. It's quite a hassle to send it back. Although Reigakure is a village that specialized themselves in soul and nature art, the act of dead soul calling is rarely done," explained Rhaera. He thought it was enough and he left before anybody could say anything.

In a different place, a place that looked like a library, Akaki crouched (it was more like floating) carefully and silently between the large book shelves. She truly didn't want to do this, but a master's order couldn't be denied easily. In another people's eyes, sneaking into this restricted part of… well she better forget this place's name, was no less than suicide. But it was a miracle at the first place of how she could sneak this far without being caught. But it seemed her luck ended here. The thing she mean to bring was in somewhere behind a large marble door in front of her, which it was sealed.

"Oh yes, I forgot to ask him of HOW can I open the seal. Very smart Akaki, very smart…" she scolded herself. Then she remembered Rhaera's words. She took out the black and rectangular shaped earring and stared at it intently.

_You'll need this._

The boy's words echoed in her mind.

"But what for?" she wondered out loud. Then she sighed tiredly and landed herself on the library's floor, hands touching the floor. "Uhh… why I have to have a careless and ignorant master like him?" she whined. Then her thoughts wandered to his brother. "What will Hakai nii-san does if he was me?" she asked to herself. Unknown by her, the earring started to glow slightly and its black color started to spread on the green floor, towards the door. Akaki didn't notice it until she heard a soft click that sounded like a key is being unlocked. She lifted her head and seeing the door slowly but surely opening. She tried to speak something but no words came out from her mouth, made her looking like a gaping goldfish. After the door stopped moving and opened widely, she finally got her tongue back.

"It… opens…" she sighed in awe. After a moment she shook her head, reminding herself that the faster she get out of this restricted place, the better it was. She had no time to admire something, she could ask Rhaera later.

She entered a round room with book shelves on its wall. Her eyes wandered to search the thing.

"Black scroll…black scroll… Aha! Gotcha!" she exclaimed softly when she found the scroll. She went to the shelf where it was and took it. She shoved it to her small bag and left the library. She was at the border of the danger zone (the library was somewhere in this area) when she heard the alarm. It was a traditional alarm that used a large bell but it set the entire village on guard.

She gulped. They knew that the scroll was gone from its place. She better got out of the village before she couldn't. She flied quickly but not too quick to avoid attention. People in shikifuku (Japanese onmyouji's clothes that's used in a ritual) and heian period like clothes(2) with their spirit companion were running pass her, towards the place she had been before. She became very scared. What if she was caught? But she knew better not to panic. She was nearly screamed in happiness when she reached the border of the village and miraculously passed it. When she was far enough, she sighed happily.

"Haahhh… that was close!"

"What do you mean by 'close'?" came a voice from behind her.

Akaki froze. Her face would pale if she was a human. She gulped and turned her head. Her worst nightmare was right behind her. A troop of onmyouji, itako, miko, and other kinds of 'spirit tamer' with cold and suspicious expression their face, staring at her.

_Holy Uzume Mother of land, help me…_ whined Akaki mentally.

The speaker was a black haired man with green eyes. "Answer me, spirit!" he shouted. But instead of replying, Akaki went back slowly. She was too scared to answer.

"Don't move! Or we'll seal you!" yelled the man again. Akaki stopped. But still didn't answer the question.

"Well then, I change the question since you won't answer it. How could you enter the sealed room?" the onmyouji asked.

Akaki was still too afraid to answer.

"Answer me!" the man became impatient.

"Wh-why would you want to know anyway!" Akaki finally got her voice back, slightly annoyed by the onmyouji.

"Totally clueless aren't you? Because only a Reigakure's Reikage that could enter the room!"

Akaki's bag fell from her grip.

………………………………………………

Ended on: March 20th 2005

**Well, that's it! Hope you like it! After reading this, don't forget to review so I could know if people like my story or not. It's an AU anyway. **

**Glossary:**

**(1) Soul village**

**(2) Heian period clothes: Junihito — for court women, Noshi — for court men, Bukan-Sokutai — for court warriors, Uneme — for Lady in Waiting, Suikan — for hunters, Kazami — warm weather clothes for court women. For the rest of information could be seen in web(dot)mit(dot)edu/jpnet/kimono/**

**Hope this information could be useful while reading my or another's stories. BTW, this is a very future NaruHina.**


	2. Scroll 02: The Truth

**Scroll 02: The Truth**

**Disclaimer: **Will never ever own Naruto

It was a mere sunny day in the afternoon. Naruto had nothing to do. Sakura had just come home and he had no idea about what he could do. There was nothing interesting outside. Although Tsunade allowed him to take a walk, she strictly forbids him not to move around too much, do heavy activities, and the most disappointing: she didn't allow Naruto to eat ramen or any heavy foods like meats. She said his stomach wasn't strong enough yet to eat heavy foods. But he knew that it was a mere reason to make him eat vegetables and fruit. Damn adults. Always overprotective.

He was sitting on a chair beside the window and watching doctors, nurses, medical ninjas, and patients moving around in the hospital yard. Looking at them just made his mood worse. He had to do something. No matter what it was. So he decided to take a walk. A little walk won't hurt, will it?

So he stood up and slipped his legs to a pair of not-so-stylish-ordinary sandals. He decided to go to a silent and where there were no people around place. Not long, his legs automatically brought him to the hospital roof.

Naruto sighed. "Roof, what a lovely place to spend with when you want to be alone…"

"I agree with that." A voice came from behind and up Naruto, squashing the thought of he was being alone. The blonde turned and found a familiar green hair.

"Mr. Ice-cube! What are you doing here?" Naruto asked. Rhaera, who sat with legs crossing on the small roof above the stair, faced him with a disagreed expression.

"I should be the one who ask that. I have been here since morning and then you came and rudely interrogated me," said Rhaera coldly.

"Have been here since _morning_?" exclaimed the blonde unbelievably. "What you have been doing?"

"Waiting." Rhaera answered plainly and honestly.

"For who?" asked Naruto.

"Akaki," the archer said as he gazed or rather… faced to the sky once more.

"Who is that?" asked Naruto curiously.

"A blue glow flower spirit. Don't ask anything again. You are asking too much," said the archer, slightly annoyed. Naruto pouted. Knowing the fact that Rhaera was an onmyouji was explaining enough to not ask.

"Fine! I'll leave you to your own world! Is curious is a crime now?" Naruto asked to nobody as he took a seat as far as possible from the plain as paper archer. He faintly heard Rhaera was murmuring something like: "Yes, to me" but decided to let it passed. He looked to the village through the fence. Konoha was so lively outside, he wished Tsunade had been softer enough to allow him do his daily activities such as eating one or two bowls of ramen, training, do some mission, etc.

After bored seeing the city, Naruto laid his body down, put his hands under his head to make it serve as a pillow, turned his gaze to the blue sky. A single black bird whatever it was, it was too far to recognize its kind flew in a circle above Konoha. How lucky the bird was, being able to fly and has nothing to worry beside food and how to life. Sometimes it was nice to imagine the 'I-can-fly' thing but it always ended up as a mere imagination. He had ever experienced the long time fall (thanks to Jiraiya) but never fly. And his high jump that nearly like flying was still different from flying.

"Hey." Rhaera's voice interrupted his thought.

"What?" Naruto asked curtly. He was trying to think in peace and successful doing that but that archer ruined his moments!

"Why do you want to be a Hokage?" asked Rhaera.

"What kind of question is that?" asked Naruto.

"Now asking is a crime for you…" the archer pointed.

"Shut up! Like you, I have the rights to do that!" yelled Naruto furiously.

"And I have the rights to question and to be answered," said the archer.

"I hate you," hissed the blonde.

Rhaera seemed didn't mind. "Go on, as long as it's free to hate somebody."

"GEEZ!" after yelling that, Naruto continued his sightseeing. He couldn't stand the archer! Everything the green haired boy said was right!

"So?" asked Rhaera.

"'So' what?" Naruto began to lose his patience.

"Your answer."

"Fine! I want to be admitted by everyone! Satisfied?"

Rhaera looked thoughtful for a moment. "So, to put it vulgarly, you want medals?"

Naruto immediately sat up. "I never dream let alone say that!"

"But unconsciously, you do. There are more than enough ways to be admitted besides being a Hokage," said Rhaera.

"Shut up! I have the rights to choose whether I want to be a Hokage or not!" yelled Naruto furiously. His cheeks and ears became red from anger.

"You're right. But what are you going to do after being Hokage? Do you will give up your job as soon as your head engraved on that mountain?" asked Rhaera coldly and sarcastically.

Okay. That got Naruto's temper. The blonde suddenly got up and faced Rhaera with furious face. He had never been this mad before. His lips quivered from bit his anger back, face flushed red like a volcano that was ready anytime to explode. How could HE, a blind boy, moreover at the same age like him, insult his dream and talked like he was the more experienced one?

"You… why you…" Naruto was too angry to let the words out of his mouth.

"Why? Because you won't know how hard it is to be a leader. Do you even realize this when you choose the path to be a Hokage?"

To these words, Naruto fell silent. Rhaera was right. He never thought of it. Being Hokage was a hard job everybody knows that. But still, he wants to be a Hokage. Why? He asked himself. Then he found the answer.

"You are right that I didn't realize it. But become a Hokage is the only way to make my existence known as Naruto Uzumaki, not the Ninetail demon fox," said the blonde.

"Well? Isn't that Kyuubi problem has gotten rid of? You don't need to worry about that anymore," said Rhaera.

Naruto couldn't reply this sentence.

"Besides, you can't and won't become a Hokage," added the archer.

"WHAT? Why?" yelled Naruto.

"Two reasons. First, you won't be happy if you become a Hokage. Secondly, you are not qualified to," explained Rhaera.

"Who are you to decide things like that? You are not my God!" exclaimed Naruto.

"It's right that I'm not your God. But I'm just telling what's the truth," said Rhaera.

Naruto became more and more furious. "What kind of truth is that?"

"If you are not satisfied, tell me what the truth is." After said that, Rhaera got down, there was a challenging expression on his face. Knowing what it means, Naruto set his fighting pose too.

"With pleasure." With that, Naruto lunched forward to Rhaera.

The fight had been short. Strangely, Naruto's blow rarely landed on Rhaera, but it seemed that Rhaera's speed was the same as ever. Even if it landed, it had done nothing to the archer. With Rhaera in the upper hands, Naruto could do nothing but kept attacking the archer with no success.

"Will you ever understand? Your body isn't the same anymore!" shouted the archer as he moved to his side to dodge Naruto's punch.

"Shut up!" shouted Naruto.

"Stop deceiving yourself! You feel it, right? The decreasing stamina, accuracy, and agility—" he dodged a kick, "—even health. You know that the Kyuubi had taken more than just its freedom!"

"Silence!" yelled Naruto, still trying to ignore Rhaera's words. But deep in his heart, he knew that the archer was right. He was weaker, slower, and moreover easy to hurt. A mere punch from Rhaera he got earlier was more than enough to make his head spin. Usually, it requires more than five punches from opponent to make him feel the same thing. Maybe it was right that he was too relying to the Kyuubi's power. But still, without it he could summon Gamabunta. So…

"Do you still want me to tell you the truth that I've been trying to hide for your own good?" yelled Rhaera back.

"I.say.I.know.what.is.the.real.TRUTH!" shouted Naruto.

"Fine! Besides all of the previous ones I said, your life won't be much longer than three years!"

That stopped Naruto's moves.

"Other people may not see it, but I did see it." The archer said his words as if it was something that was very simple.

"What—" Naruto hissed, his voice trembled a little, "—did you see, you blind human!" shouted the blonde as he charged again. The green haired archer easily dodged the careless attack.

"I know you won't believe this, but I have the ability—" he dashed to his right to dodge another Naruto's uncontrolled attack.

"Shut up! I won't hear, let alone believe you!" yelled Naruto as he threw his punch to his opponent but again, missed the target. Rhaera took this as an opportunity to stop the blonde's movements by caught Naruto's punching hand. Naruto threw his free hand only to be caught by the archer again.

"I may blind but I have this cursed ability to see how long a person cans life!" yelled Rhaera as he struggled to keep Naruto's hand from reaching their target.

"Do you think I'll believe a foreigner like you! Your onmyouji crap you've brought is more than enough to make a person distrust you!" shouted Naruto as he kept trying to punch Rhaera.

That hit Rhaera's nerve. "Onmyoujitsu is not a crap! I know it's hard to believe but—"

"So that's really you, Reikage-_sama_." A cold voice came from above. Believing his fighting sense, Rhaera dodged (bringing Naruto with him) just before a wave of energy smashed the floor they used to be there.

Rhaera turned his head and found it was the dark-grey haired man that was the kidnapper of Naruto. He watched the two boys from his place on the fence with gleam of amusement in his red eyes. He wore a Noshi with blue patterns minus the tall black hat now.

"Oh, you." Rhaera said it with a (if Naruto's ears were in the right condition) bored tone.

"Wow, you remembered me. I'm feeling honored," said the man with a (surely not a pure) pleasant tone.

"How could I forget a person that has tried to use a weak soul to possess me, kidnapped my partner under my nose, and left without a proper good-bye. And now you attacked someone who supposed to be your leader. Or former leader, I realized," said Rhaera with a matter of fact tone.

The man whistled. "Clever minds you got, Reikage-san."

Rhaera looked at the man with a frowning face. "Do you think why and how I became a Reikage?"

"Not by bribe I suppose," answered the man.

"Glad you have brain, Mr. Pain-in-ass," said Rhaera mockingly.

"Hey, I have a name, you know! It's Tsukihiro Miyabi."

Naruto stared at him. "You are a man, right?"

The man snapped to the blonde. "Of course! Can't you see that I'm as masculine as a tiger? What's that question supposed to mean?"

Rhaera tried hard not to snicker. "It's just your name is as feminine as a girl."

"Aren't you the same?" asked Naruto before Miyabi could retort.

"Well, that's a different story. By the way Miyabi-_kun_ (Rhaera put a lot of stress in the 'kun' word), what kind of business you have with us until you have to stick with the fence?" asked Rhaera.

"Finally you asked that. As you know, I am one of the rebellion members of Reigakure."

"So? You want to kill me thus your rebellion would be a success?" asked Rhaera, frowned.

"Well, yes. But I'm no match for you so I'm ordered to take that earrings of yours," said Miyabi as he pointed his index finger to Rhaera.

"I'm sorry, but your request is unavailable for now and forever," said Rhaera as he prepared to strike anytime.

Miyabi sighed. "Too bad, I was hoping you would have been easy to cooperate. But I guess I can't help it. You are Reikage after all…" and he too, prepared to fight.

"Naruto, stay back," ordered the archer.

"What!" but before the blonde could sound the rest of his protest, Rhaera spoke again.

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't even beat a regular genin now, let alone this guy. His level is far above yours and you'll be nothing but nuisance! Besides, I have more experience fighting someone from Reigakure. So stay back," said the archer strictly.

Naruto was taken aback by Rhaera's remark. Like it or not, the green-haired archer was right. He was far weaker than before and he never fought someone from foreign land before. He had no choice but complied with Rhaera. He drew back as far as possible from the two Rei village's villagers and waited. He never likes to be a helpless audience.

The wind blew Miyabi's black hat off from its owner's head. As the hat fell back to the floor, the battle started.

Miyabi jumped as high as possible and threw some paper charms. Rhaera easily dodged it. The charms hit the floor and embedded on it like a kunai would. It was the archer's turn now. Rhaera drew three of his arrows and fired it to Miyabi — which the man had a near escape from those. One of those arrows managed to scratch Miyabi's perfect cheek.

Rhaera smirked. "Not bad for a rebel." And he fired again his arrows like before. Miyabi had just landed but had a near escape from those too, but this time he wasn't as lucky as before. One of those arrows tore his neat sleeve and deeply scratched his arm.

"Shit!" cursed Miyabi as he drew five paper charms, made them formed five points in the air, and activated them. Each paper let out a ray of light and shaped a star like draw. It acted as a shield that protected Miyabi from another row of attack from Rhaera's archery assault. But it immediately broke because Rhaera's arrows were too strong. But it was a fortune for him because his shield managed to stop the arrows.

_/Leader is right. I can't underestimate someone who holds the title as leader./_ thought Miyabi. It was a matter of time before he lost. Rhaera hadn't even used half of his power and skill. For the Reikage, this might be just a warming up. He had to use his best ability or he couldn't even get near to Rhaera.

He had decided it. Miyabi drew a string of brown beads and round it around his arms as his hands formed a hand seal.

Rhaera stopped his movement as Miyabi chanted sentences in odd language. "Already do a calling? I think you are greater than I expect. Or… you want to end this quickly? I won't let you!" Rhaera fired his arrows again but this time Miyabi was ready. Without stopping his chants Miyabi dodged the attack. This time the arrow managed to scratch his shoulder.

"Shit!" Rhaera cursed. He was taking too easy and it was already too late. The spirit Miyabi managed to call had answered the man's call.

Naruto shivered. Suddenly it was terribly freezing. It was so cold until he was sure if another degree was reduced, his blood would freeze. He hugged himself to keep his body warm as he tried to watch the battle. He thanked to the hospital because hospital pajamas were thicker and warmer than his normal clothes. But what came next was out of his imagination. Clouds were getting in the way of sunlight. It was almost as dark as early night. But darkness wasn't the thing that made Naruto wasn't sure if he had not been dreaming.

It was snowing. More than snowing, it was a blizzard. Correction, a local blizzard because it happened in hospital area only. Konoha was located in a TROPICAL area and there was no way snow would fall. But it was falling, so why?

It was not long before a woman figure appeared. She was slim and tall. But she was no normal woman. Her skin was white like a snow and her eyes were red like ruby. Her long hair was also white and glowing because the massive white aura that radiated from her body. She wore a long, white kimono that flapped wildly because the cold wind. She was very beautiful but another thing that made a man wouldn't believe that she was a human that she was floating.

"Yuki Onna (Snow Woman)? What a troublesome spirit you have chosen…" moaned Rhaera. The problem was not that it was a hard spirit to shoo away, but it was attracting attention.

As if on cue, Tsunade appeared after kicked the poor door open. She was followed by other medical ninjas.

"What's going on here?" asked Tsunade to anyone who could answer. She needed to shout because the blizzard was so hard. She needed to shield her face from the snow so she could remain able to see.

"As you can see, snows in the wrong place!" replied Rhaera by shouting too. He tried his best not to let his saliva frozen and not to be blown off by the wind.

Tsunade moaned. She had been transfusing blood to one of her patients when the cold air came and froze the blood.

"Tsunade-san! Take Naruto and go away from here!" shouted Rhaera as he dodged the ice spears from the Snow Woman.

"Okay! But can't you make this place warmer? This hospital isn't a battlefield!" shouted Tsunade. Then she ran to Naruto and helped the almost freezing blonde.

"I can, but I won't guarantee that it would safe! You should empty the first and second upper floor— no. I mean the whole hospital!" shouted Rhaera as he smashed the ice spears that were mean to his head.

"I understand! But give me fifteen minutes!" with that, Tsunade managed to escape the freezing battlefield with Naruto.

Miyabi smirked. "Ten minutes, huh? Well, that's more than enough. Reikage! If you don't want anybody to be harmed, give those earrings!"

"What!" exclaimed Rhaera. Couldn't he possibly..!

Miyabi read his face. "Your expectation is right! I'm going to order the Snow Woman to give some solid rain! Don't think I can't do that!"

"You can't!" shouted Rhaera.

"Want some proof?" then Miyabi shouted to the Snow Woman. "Yuki Onna! Use your ice rain!"

"No!" yelled Rhaera as he fired a burning arrow to the snow woman. But it died before it reached the snow spirit. Shit! He was too underestimating him!

Blocks of ice with random shape began to fall all over Konoha village. Their sizes were quite small, from as small as a golf ball to as big as a soccer ball. But they were more than enough to knock a person unconscious or smashed some shop name's board until it broke into two or three pieces and fell. People panicked and began to find place to shelter them from the blocks of ice.

Kakashi was reading his beloved Icha-Icha Tactics book when something hit right on the top of his head. He thought that it might be Sakura or any other naughty children but he began to doubt it when he knew what hit his head.

"Ice?" he asked himself.

It was as small as gravel was. No matter how naughty a child, he or she wouldn't waste his or her time to collect ices before hit him. So there was only one another option. He looked up to the sky and saw a small white dot that became bigger and bigger until it was as big as a soccer ball and he recognized that it was an irregular ice block that was on its way to his head. It was a miraculous fortune or smartness that he looked up to the sky in the right time or he wouldn't have the time to dodge it. The ice smashed the ground and broke into pieces.

Kakashi sighed, "That was close. If I hadn't look up, my head was the one that had broken into pieces…"

But the silver haired jounin had no time to relax as another wave of ice blocks assaulted him. He managed to escape the big ones but the smaller ones sometimes hit him. It didn't cause a serious injury, but it still hurt and annoying. Kakashi thought it was better to search the cause than search for shelter because when something strange happens it bound to be worse. Who knows if the blocks of ice became as big as a boat? Hopefully it would not.

Kakashi was a good situation forecaster but a bad hoper. What he expected (seriously) happened. It didn't take long when a very big ice that had the power to smash down a house into rubbles fell down.

"Kakashi! We need help here!" the silver haired jounin heard Kurenai's voice. He turned and found Kurenai, Asuma, and Gai, were doing their best to break the ice into pieces to shield the non-ninjas villagers. Without a second thought, Kakashi rushed to the crowded part of the village and helped the other jounins to do their task.

"What the hell is going on here?" asked Kakashi with shout to overcome the sounds of breaking ice.

"I'm glad you asked that, but unfortunately, I don't have the answer either!" shouted Asuma as he used his fist to break a block of big as table ice.

"Hey, Kakashi! How about the challenge of 'who's the one that break ice with the greatest number'?" asked Gai with his glittering teeth.

Asuma and Kurenai sweat-dropped. "Gai, this isn't the time!" said Kurenai.

Kakashi with his bored face, said, "Do as your wish."

"Yahoo! You are as I can expect from my rival!" yelled Gai with cocky and wide smile that was showing his teeth.

_/Hopefully it'll spur the two of them…/_ sighed Kurenai mentally.

Back to Rhaera and Miyabi. Rhaera's whole body nearly covered with snow. The Snow Woman kept blowing her blizzard attack. He had to wait until all the hospital occupants evacuated. But he couldn't wait any longer, fifteen minutes was enough for the Snow Woman to turn the whole Konoha into rubbles!

"What's the matter with you, Reikage! Isn't the snow woman is no match for you?" shouted Miyabi mockingly. Well, he was right. Rhaera could get rid the spirit in a blink of eye, but the energy pressure would be too much for the building. Snow Woman might not a high level spirit, but in this village, no building had one or more energy mufflers! Nothing would absorb the radiating energy and the hospital building might collapsed!

"Or do you afraid that your work will damage the building and harm the people in it? You don't need to worry, because I'll do it first! Yuki Onna! Freeze this village!" ordered Miyabi.

The Snow Woman complied. She began to freeze the hospital. The ice spread quickly from the roof to the floors below it. The evacuating people began to panic.

"Don't panic! Just walk quickly!" ordered Tsunade and the people complied. They walked as fast as possible. _/Rhaera, just wait a little longer/_ said Tsunade mentally.

But before the Snow Woman could finish her task, an arrow flew through her chest from her back. The snow spirit body started to melt and evaporated but not vanished. Apparently, the arrow was equipped with a strong fire charm.

"What the—!" cursed Miyabi as he turned to see who was the attacker.

It was more than one attacker. People in shikifuku (an onmyouji's ceremony dress) were riding a bird shaped shikigami (spirit animals made from paper charms). One of them still hold his bow, apparently he was the one who attacked the Snow Woman, People below (who were safe enough from the ice blocks) were pointing to them and wondering who they were.

A woman with long brown hair and black eyes (who apparently the leader) took a scroll and read it. "Tsukihiro Miyabi. One of the rebels, formerly in the Seiryu legion as one of the snow mountains guardian team leaders. Your status was missing. The last time you were sighted was last year at the first month of winter. But there was a rumor that you are still alive and a part of the rebellion team. And it turned out to be true," she stared at Miyabi with filthy look, "right?"

"Haguma Yatsuki from Suzaku legion, eh? I used to admire you, but too bad when I finally meet you we face each other as enemies." Miyabi's voice sounded calm but Rhaera knew that he was trying to hide his panic. Only a stupid person that was dare to challenge a whole team that contains five people when they were as experienced as you or even more.

"So? Do you want to give up?" asked Yatsuki. "The truth is I don't like to fight with traitors."

Miyabi snickered. "Hmph! Give up? After all I sacrifice?"

"You could still go back now, before too late," said Rhaera.

"Oh yes, Reikage-_sama_. You are the one who made the rule right? That we must not go out of the village unless you order it. And that happens one every twenty years. Do you think all of the villagers are happy to live deep under the dark and cold sea? We are human, we need sun and fresh dry land, you know," said Miyabi with anger.

Rhaera lifted his eyebrows. "That's why you and your friends rebel?" he asked as if it was a very simple thing.

"Yes! We are humans like those ninjas but why we must live in a very dark sea? We deserved sunlight, you know!" said Miyabi, repeating his sentences.

"It looks like you and your leader didn't learn well, did you? It's mentioned in the Geographical and History subject that IF the villagers want to see sun and beg it to their leader, the Reikage will be more than pleased to bring the sunlight to the Reigakure. SO, all you must do is just beg to me. Isn't it simple?" asked Rhaera.

"Don't make me laugh! How could a human bring sunlight to the deep sea?" asked Miyabi.

"Well then," Rhaera shrugged. "that means you don't believe in me. You are free to attack, Yatsuki."

Yatsuki bowed to Rhaera. "Yes, Reikage-sama." And then she began to attack.

It didn't take long to make Miyabi cornered. But luck was with the rebel. His companions came and saved Miyabi after they made chaos enough to distract the Rei villagers. Miyabi escaped, leaving a nearly destroyed Konoha.

"What a chaos…" commented Tsunade who realized that the battle was over (judging from the lack of blizzard) and realized that the hospital was far from its original shape so was Konoha. It was a miracle that it could still stand. Well, it was a miracle that snow would appear in Konoha at the first place.

Tsunade sighed.

_/I guess I know what our first and second Hokage felt when they built Konoha…/_

* * *

"Well, Akaki. Why did you bring a bunch of Suzaku army when I asked you to bring a scroll?" asked Rhaera when he made sure that no one except the other Reigakure villagers heard them. As if the Konoha villagers cared. They were shocked enough by the falling ice blocks.

Akaki gasped. She realized that she had failed her given task.

"Well… I… I… uhh…" she blabbered nervously.

"It's not her fault. We followed her without her knowing." Yatsuki interrupted Akaki. Akaki turned her head sharply and stared at her. Why the woman defended her?

Rhaera turned his back to face the people. "It's useless to defend her. I know that you forced her to tell you where am I."

Yatsuki flinched to the words.

"And you doubt that I am the Reikage, aren't you?" he added.

"I…" Yatsuki started.

"That's okay. It's understandable. I've not shown my face to the villagers for the last twenty years, after all. Besides, I know you all are very surprised to see this child form, right? In fact, I'm older than you all. But as you wish, I won't blame her. Akaki, where is the scroll? I'll deal with you all later," said Rhaera as he turned his face back to face them.

Akaki went near to Rhaera and gave the black scroll to the Reikage. The green-haired archer opened the seal and read through it. It wondered the people of how could he read the scroll when he couldn't see anything. But he was full of mysteries at the first place anyway. He nodded several times and closed the scroll back.

"Uhm… master? Can I ask, why did you read the list of the death people?" asked Akaki.

Rhaera turned his face to the sky. "To make sure that if the Yondaime no Hokage has died or not."

* * *

**Answer to Review:**

**Dragon Man 180 I know it's a bit confusing, but it'll get clear later. I promise. It's more like that this story has no connection with my previous one, that's what one of my friends said.**

**Announcement:**

**I won't update till May. I have the Try Out tests, Pre-School and National examination, etc. I even may not update till June. I'm still a schoolgirl, you know. And I need to pass these examinations to continue to the Senior High School. Think about examination, that reminds me of the still genin Naruto. Good-Bye. **

**PS: Thank you to those who reviewed!**


	3. Scroll 03: The 4th Hokage, has died or n...

**Scroll 03: The 4th Hokage, has died or not?**

"Uhm… master? Can I ask, why did you read the list of the death people?" asked Akaki.

Rhaera turned his face to the sky. "To make sure that if the Yondaime no Hokage has died or not."

"What?" asked a confused Akaki.

"Why would a Reikage like you, care for the other kage's village?" asked Yatsuki.

"Because—" whatever Rhaera was going to say was interrupted by Tsunade's entrance. She tapped her right feet and set a frowning face to indicate her confusion, resent, and angry. Some of the ninjas appeared later and took place behind her. And the Reikage knew, if he didn't straighten things out, that pose of the Hokage meant to be a bad sign.

Rhaera faced her for a moment. "I know I'm more than owe all of you some explanation."

Tsunade stopped her tapping and lessen her frown but didn't let her suspicious eyes down. She turned her head to the ninjas, more specifically ANBU team, and nodded her head. The team of ANBU responded with a light nod and suddenly jumped to the archer's sides and seized him, putting his hands to his back. The onmyoujis and Akaki went alert and prepared to strike. But Rhaera stopped them.

"Don't! We've caused trouble enough for us to be accused as threat!" commanded the archer.

"But—!" Yatsuki tried to protest.

"They have the reason, Yatsuki. I'll be okay. They have the reason to arrest me, but they don't have the reason to hurt me. And Hokage-san," Rhaera turned his head to Tsunade. "Don't touch them." Rhaera's voice was low and deadly when he said it.

Tsunade got the clue and nodded. "I guarantee their safety," she said shortly but really meant it.

Rhaera let the ANBUs guide him. He was followed by the helpless stare of his followers.

oOoOo

Naruto opened his eyes and saw the blue sky of Konoha's. He knew that he was on a comfortable bed, but how could he see the sky? There was surprisingly cold air too. Suddenly he heard a soft squeak and he turned his head to the direction of the sound. It was Hinata. He had no idea why that blue haired girl squeak and had her face red as Sakura's cloth.

"Hinata…" Naruto barely said with his surprisingly hoarse voice.

"Y-yes?" she gasped a little. It had been okay when she watched him sleep, but why she felt so nervous now?

"Why… I can see… the sky..?" asked the blonde slowly and unsurely.

Hinata was confused at Naruto's question at first but then she got what he meant. "It— it's because… there's no safe enough building to stay at…"

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto with a surprised tone, suddenly losing his hoarse voice.

Hinata tried her best to answer fluently. "Don't you remember? The falling ice…"

Naruto immediately got it. "Oh yeah, those damned ice… it done quite something to the village, right?"

Hinata nodded slightly. "Yes. According to the chuunin until jounin's… inspection, almost one hundred percent of the village heavily damaged. Many are injured. But luckily… no one died. The buildings that are still standing are considered not safe enough… so… no one is allowed to enter their houses. The hospital is still standing, but it has the worst condition. That's… why the injured people including Naruto-kun are being treated outside."

He turned his head to another side and saw the sea of beds around him. Hinata was right.

"You are right. By the way, you said that almost all place in Konoha are heavily damaged. So, which place that got light damage?" asked Naruto.

"It is…"

oOoOo

"Out of all places, it seems that the Hokage Tower is the safest place, isn't it?" sighed Tsunade with her eyes locked to the window. "No damage. Even at its front terrace."

"I think I can answer why it survived the ice stampede," said Rhaera casually as if he wasn't being interrogated and guarded by a troop of ANBUs.

"Thank you for your offering but I'll ask you later. Now, explain _it_ to me," said Tsunade as she put her arm under her jaw to support it, while her free hand was tapping its fingers on her desk, impatiently waiting for whatever answer the archer was going to give her.

"Which one you want me to explain first? Who was the attacker or how did the ices appear?" asked Rhaera.

"I want to know WHY he came into Konoha for the first question, then why he dropped the ices all over the village, and HOW he could do that?" asked Tsunade impatiently.

"For the first question, he came after me. Or… the thing that proof me as the leader of Rei-gakure," said Rhaera.

"Proof YOU as the leader of Rei-gakure?" asked Tsunade suspiciously.

"In short, I'm one of the kages like you. My title is Reikage," said Rhaera casually, ignoring the fact that he made all the room attendants stared at him. "That means, a small troop of ANBU would not do anything to me," he added, made the ANBUs flinched a bit.

"And why are you here, in Konoha, at the first place?" asked Tsunade.

"Patience, Tsunade-san. I'll uncover the mysteries one by one," he said plainly. When he was sure that Tsunade closed her mouth, he continued. "For the second question, he dropped the ices all over the village to threat me to give the thing he wants."

Tsunade nodded in understanding.

"And for the third question, as you saw back than, he called a Snow Woman," said Rhaera.

"A— what?" asked Tsunade.

"Snow Woman. One of many kinds of snow spirits. Its ability is to produce ice, bring winter to a place, guard the high mountains, and other cold places like some country at the north. They are weak at heat. The ones that could call snow woman is a C-ranked onmyouji," explained Rhaera. "Don't stare at me. I'm telling the truth." He added.

Deciding to ignore the doubt for a moment, Tsunade asked. "What do you mean by C-ranked?"

"You see, like ninjas, we have our own rank. There are five of them. From the lowest, E — it usually contains of ordinary civilian onmyouji. The ones who are in this rank usually have the basic ability such as the ability to see souls, speak, hear, and touch them. D rank usually contains students or practitioner. C rank usually contains the people who passed the final student exam and are ready to the battlefield or teaching the D rank people. The B rank contains the leaders of a C ranked team. Their tasks are to guard the village along with their lower ranked team. They are mean to attack if necessary, just like the ones you see back then. They are a team with a B ranked leader," explained Rhaera.

Tsunade nodded in understanding. "So, it's like a jounin leading a band of chuunin. You may continue."

"The A rank contains the people who do very serious jobs such as spying and any other things that are vital for the village. They have the direct order from me. The last was S rank. Very few people who can obtain this rank and capable to be a Reikage. Well, as long as I'm not dead yet," said Rhaera as he turned his head to stare the window. "That Yondaime no Hokage had done a very good job to this tower, hadn't he?" he wondered out loud but not loud enough to be clear for Tsunade.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

Rhaera shook his head and faced Tsunade again. "Nothing."

"But!" a familiar man's voice popped in. "Can we trust your story?" asked the voice.

Everybody turned and saw Jiraiya was hanging upside down in front of the window. Everybody would sweat-drop or laugh if the situation was not like this. Jiraiya quickly entered the room and patted the archer.

"You sure you are not making any excuse?" he asked as if he was interrogating a guilty child.

He would see that Rhaera was glaring at him if the archer didn't wear a blindfold. "What for?" he asked.

"It's not like we'll easily believe you. Your story is just… sounds so unbelievable," said Jiraiya.

Tsunade sighed. "I know what you mean, Jiraiya. I can't easily believe him either. But looking at our situation now, it's hard to find the truth. What if his entire story is right? One people from his village enough to make our village turned into rubbles. What if the entire village of him is set to attack us? We are nothing but history…"

Jiraiya stared at Rhaera. "By the way, why do you come here? Spying? Is there anything that threatens you?"

"I have two reasons. First, there's somebody that has violated one of the nature's laws and it's my job to punish that somebody…" explained Rhaera.

"Nature's laws?" asked Jiraiya, lifting his eyebrows.

"Nothing is immortal." Rhaera answered shortly.

"Orochimaru and his immortality jutsu," mumbled Tsunade.

"Then, what's the second reason?" asked Jiraiya.

"The rebellion. I smelled it before I left my village. But I don't want to make decision too quickly so I was planning to make my leave as bait. And they didn't take long to eat it," answered Rhaera.

"May I ask one more question?" asked Tsunade.

"It depends." Rhaera shrugged.

"Why do the rebels rebel?" asked the kunoichi.

Rhaera turned his head. "That's our village's problem. You don't need to stick your nose into it unless you're seeking trouble."

"That means you don't want any external factors, do you?" asked Tsunade.

"You could put it that way." Rhaera was silence for a moment. "Can I ask you?"

"About what?"

"That fourth Hokage of yours…" he paused for a minute, "…has he already died or not?"

Tsunade's eyebrows twitched. Everybody, including the stone like ANBUs, immediately stared to him. "Why do you ask that? Of course he has."

"Really? What's the proof?" asked the archer.

"What are you trying to pull?" asked Jiraiya.

"Nothing, it's just, I know you never saw his dead body directly, am I right?" asked Rhaera.

"Don't say something that you don't know. Yondaime is DEAD. That's the fact," said Tsunade.

"At least that was what Sandaime told to the people, right?" asked Rhaera.

"You…" growled Tsunade. Anyone who was smart enough would run at this very second. "Why do you ask this anyway?"

"I'm just wondering, who is this man since he was very similar to Naruto. I ordered Akaki to investigate this and I found that he was the once fourth Hokage," said Rhaera.

"Then what's the connection of this to your question?" asked Tsunade.

"I couldn't find him at the list of the death people," answered Rhaera simply.

"What?" asked Tsunade and Jiraiya at once.

"I have the authority to guard and read the list. For the short description, no living people will have their name on that list," explained Rhaera.

"You're becoming weirder and weirder every second. I guess it's enough for today. You all," she faced the band of ANBU. "—send him to that place and make sure he doesn't get out of it until I order you."

The ANBUs began to seize him again but the archer yanked his hand off of the ANBU's grip. "That's fine. I could walk myself without stumbling myself."

One of the ANBU looked worriedly to Tsunade. Tsunade nodded her head and the ANBU made no more effort to hold Rhaera.

After they were gone, Tsunade sighed. She wiped her cold sweat from her forehead.

"Could you trust him?" asked her to her comrade.

"Not when he doesn't telling the entire truth," answered Jiraiya simply.

"Yes," Tsunade sighed.

"We can't help it. That's their internal business. We have more than enough troubles…" said Jiraiya.

"Yeah, but not only that…" Jiraiya stared at Tsunade as she continued. "He said he could read the death list. How can he read when he can't see?"

"Right. He hides more than we can expect," said Jiraiya.

And they all fell into silence.

Meanwhile, Naruto was walking near a river's bank, still with his pajamas. Hinata companied him in silence. She couldn't leave Naruto alone when he had just recovered. Who knows he would relapse. Naruto didn't mind. But it was more like he didn't care if he was treated like a three years old child that needed to be guarded since he was in a deep thought. Rhaera was right. Definitely right. And he hated it. He walked without realizing where he would go. Finally, he stopped at the river's bridge.

Hinata looked at Naruto worriedly. Since back from his capture, Naruto had been behaving weirdly. His usual bright, cheerful self was replaced by dark and gloomy nature. Sometimes he would doze and his gaze was blank, staring to the sky. She was wondering what could make Naruto that gloomy, even when Sasuke left, he managed to be cheerful so what kind of problem that made Naruto like this? She wanted to ask, and offer her help to be at least listening, but she knew Naruto wasn't the type that would share his problem when he was asked. So she decided to wait till he told her.

"This is…" Naruto began. Hinata startled and looked to Naruto. He was leaning to the bridge's cement rail fence, gazing down to the flow of clear water. His lips formed a sad smile. "This place is where my team and I used to meet."

Hinata couldn't do anything as she watched Naruto continuing his speech.

"Sasuke and I used to be the first one to be here. I used to try to wake up earlier, and be the first one here. But no matter how early I wake, he would come at the same time as I," said Naruto. The wind blew, ruffling his blonde hair. Talking about hair, Hinata noticed that Naruto's hair was longer. But it might be just her imagination because this was the first time she saw Naruto without his forehead protector.

"And I ended give up of it because I'd have to wait longer for Kakashi-sensei… and Sasuke and I had a silence promise to not to do that childish and tiring thing…" said Naruto as he watched a leaf fell to the river and flowed with the water.

"Hinata…"

Once again, she was startled. "Y-yes, Naruto-kun?" asked her.

"Do your team always argues with each other?" asked Naruto as he turned his head to Hinata. He smiled slightly, as if he was trying to say: 'this happens to every team.'

"Uh…" Hinata thought, searching for the answer.

"I know you never argue, you are the type that would submit to everyone's opinion or whatever. So you rarely get trouble or fight," said Naruto.

Hinata found the ground was very interesting at the moment. "Neji and father said that too…"

Naruto smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. It's not a bad thing to avoid troubles. As long as it's right for you, you may continue with it."

Hinata lifted her head and nodded slightly. "Uhm. I never argue with Kiba or Shino. It's just Kiba, he…" she struggled to find the correct word. "…doesn't want to lose to Shino. He thinks that Shino was a damned cool headed and act as if he was the leader. Meanwhile Shino thinks that it's no matter who is the leader and Kiba is too sensitive and hot headed…"

Naruto turned his head to the river again. This time he stared at the reflection of the bridge with him and Hinata on it. "That's Kiba all right. I always think he and Shino resembles me and Sasuke a bit. So I kind of understand his feelings…"

"Uhm…" Hinata just nodded.

"I used to argue too, with Sasuke. And then Sakura would hit me on the head when I thought Sasuke's idea was bad. Hmph," Naruto snickered. "It's funny to think how ridiculous we were back then…"

Hinata could only stare at Naruto. Why did the blonde talk about this? Naruto, as far she knew, never shared his feelings like this.

"But…" the blonde continued, "Maybe… I can't do that again… even if Sasuke was back…"

Then both of them were silent. Hinata was startled at Naruto's words meanwhile Naruto didn't know how to continue. The only thing they could hear was the rushing water and chirps of birds. Hinata was thinking how to break the silence when Naruto suddenly moved. He turned his back to Hinata.

"I'm going home," he said. Then he started to walk away.

Hinata was going to follow him when he turned and smile slightly.

"You don't have to follow me. I could walk with my own self," he said.

"But..!" Hinata stopped her protest when her white eyes locked to Naruto's beautiful blue but blank orbs. The blue ones seemed pleading to her. Hinata understand.

"F-fine. Be careful… Naruto-kun…" said her with head bowed down.

Naruto didn't answer as he continued his steps.

Naruto walked and walked. He didn't care where he was going. He knew that his apartment were in the same condition as the other Konoha houses. Turned into rubbles. There was nothing he could do at his place. He didn't strong enough to repair it. He would leave it to other villagers and stay out of the way. Yeah, that was better for a weak person like him.

It was a moment before he passed a little shinobi boy with his mother. It seemed they were arguing about a broken kunai.

"Come on, discard it!" commanded the mother.

"No! It's my first kunai!" said the boy as he held the broken kunai to his chest protectively. It seemed that the kunai was broken into half and the boy held its remainings.

"You idiot! You can't use it anymore! It's useless! It has broken!" said the mother.

Naruto suddenly got a sharp and painful pang in his heart.

"B-but!" the kid hesitated. He was torn between submitting to his heart or his mother.

"If you are in a battle or mission, that kunai would be nothing but useless weight! What if you died because you didn't bring another useful kunai?" asked the mother.

Naruto closed his ears with his hands. He didn't want to hear anymore of this. But the voice kept coming back.

"But at least I can keep it at home!" protested the kid.

"But you will soon forget it and it will be a jumble in the house. The best way is to discard it as soon as possible. You have to do it when you are in the mission or battle too. So now, discard it," said the mother slowly but strictly.

The kid silenced. Naruto backed away until he turned and ran as fast as he could. He closed his eyes to prevent the tears from falling. But still, the beads of salty water fell from his eyes. He ran and ran until he ran out of power. He stopped his steps and his knees fell automatically to the ground. He used his hands to support his body and prevent his face from slamming to the ground. His vision was blurred by the tears. The fallen ones were immediately absorbed by the ground. He switch his position so he was now sitting and leaning to a tree, wall, or whatever he didn't care.

"Since when…" he sobbed, "Since when did I become such a crybaby?" he asked to nobody.

"Damn it!" he yelled in frustration as he slammed his fist to the ground over and over until it bleed. Then he remembered something.

_"I think… if you have the power to stand again after you fall… that's the real power…"_ Hinata's voice echoed in his head.

"But!" he yelled, "What if I don't have the power to stand again? What if I have lost all the thing that make me could stand again?"

He sobbed miserably like a child. If Sasuke or Sakura was here, they would mock him for being a crybaby. But he couldn't help it. He already vowed his life to the ninja way and he had no other skill other than that. He was not smart like Sakura. He couldn't cook anything except instant ramen. He wasn't a looker like Sasuke. He couldn't do arts except those graffiti painting on the Hokages' monument. Moreover, he didn't have parents like the others. No one would care for him if he wasn't a ninja anymore. He would be left as a broken kunai. It had no use but useless weight that needed to be discarded.

It was all the kyuubi's fault! But… maybe what Kabuto said was right.

_"You were nothing if you had no Kyuubi."_

"Am I really nothing without Kyuubi?" he asked himself. Yes he was. He knew that he had his own chakra but Kyuubi had drained it when it came out of his body.

For a long time, he staid there sobbing. He lost the track of time and when he was aware again it was already an early evening. The sun was setting, making the blue sky red as blood. He stood up, figuring that no matter how hopeless he was, he didn't want to stay here for the night. But he realized that he didn't have the urge to come home. He decided to stroll around in this place until he thought it was enough. He looked around and realized that he was in the formerly Uchiha family's residence. How could he get here, he didn't know and didn't bother to want to know.

The place was lifeless and dull now. The 'DO NOT ENTER' yellow tapes were strapped on its entrance. This place was located a little far away from the village so Naruto found no ice blocks in here. This place was bad enough without them anyway. It was no wonder why Sasuke had been so cold, growing in a genius family that used to live far away from the lively part of the village. He stepped his feet on the rock floor of the entrance. He thought two times before entering it. He didn't want to make problems or anything. He just wanted to walk around. He ducked his head to avoid the tapes from sticking into his head.

He took a look to the place. It was surprisingly clean from blood despite the tragedy that had happened years before. He thought that the Sandaime had ordered his ninjas to clean this place. It was no surprise if he was right. Sandaime had been a very kind hearted man. Naruto knew that he wouldn't let a place staid horrible for too long.

This place wasn't like the other places in the Konoha. It was neater and a step more luxurious, as you could expect from the once greatest clan. Naruto knew that Uchihas earned their glory and wealth not by nothing. Aside from those facts, it seemed that they had been talented to clean their houses. The houses appeared to be more luxurious, but they were older looking and their styles were out of date. Maybe they were too genius so they had been often called until they didn't have the time to upgrade their own house or they respected their ancestors so much. Naruto didn't care to find out.

He walked and walked until he found a house that caught his attention. It was the biggest house around. He entered it. He opened the front door easily, finding that it wasn't locked. He looked around. He had no sharp nose like Kiba or Rhaera but he could tell that the house was overwhelmed by the smell of old woods. He didn't bother to remove his shoes from his legs; there would be no one that was going to scold him. He thought as he continued his exploration.

Not long, he found a room. It was a living room. Like all other places, it was dusty. I mean, very dusty. He looked around, not exactly sure why he invaded some dead people's territory. Then his eyes fell to a small wooden picture frame. It had landscape position and was covered with thick dust, preventing him from seeing what the picture it displayed from the distance he was now. He went toward the drawers that had the frame on it and took the frame. He wiped the dust from its glass with his hand and saw a picture of happy family.

He recognized two of the four people in that picture. They were Sasuke and Itachi in their childhood. He noted that Sasuke was a cute child back then, he would want him to be his little brother if the Sasuke he knew wasn't such a pain in ass. And for Itachi, even in his cold mask, Naruto could tell that he loved his little brother as much as a brother would do. It was easy to tell. The way he put one of his hand protectively on his brother's shoulders told enough. It was easy to understand Sasuke's will to revenge too. His once loving big brother that he admired so much turned one hundred and eighty degrees into a cold blooded assassin.

But there was a huge question mark. Why did Itachi do all of this?

Naruto knew he wouldn't get the answer. Besides why would he care for other people's business when he himself needed help?

The blonde put the frame back to its place and walked out of the room. He was just out of the house when he heard a voice.

_"…I heard your silent wish…"_

It was a woman's voice. She sang a slow and beautiful song. Her voice wasn't that beautiful, but her voice seemed to be merged with the tones.

_"…begging to the sea of stars…" _

_"…to show their pretty diamonds…"_

Naruto followed the voice. It came from the farthest part of the residence from the gate.

_"But I'm sorry…" _

_"I can't fulfill your wish…"_

_"…your simple wish… to be true…"_

The voice got louder as Naruto came nearer to the source.

_"…I even hurt you…"_

_"…by leaving you alone to face this beautiful but cruel world…"_

Naruto could see who the singer was now. She was a woman in her twenty or so. She has beautiful chocolate colored long hair that was tied into a halfway braid. It easily reached her hip. She was kneeling in front of a big Sakura tree with her back facing Naruto. Her attribute was a little bit foreign. She was wearing a sleeveless and high neck dark purple shirt. But it wasn't the whole purple. It was white colored from the neck to above her chest region. The shirt seemed to cover her body to her knees. She also wore a black belt so the lower part of the shirt seemed to be her 'skirt'. She wore a pair of black pants to match her shirt. As the exchange of the sleeves, she wore a very long black fingerless glove that covered almost of her hands. Her shoes were a bit out of place too. It was rare to see people with knee-high boots and high heels.

_"Without a parents' care…_

_"…You travel this world…"_

_"I know you would never forgive me…"_

_"…because I couldn't apologize to you…"_

_"I understand if you mad at me…"_

_"…because you suffered till the end…"_

_"It's all because of me…"_

_"Forgive me…"_

_"Forgive me…"_

_"I say it even if you wouldn't forgive me…"_

When she finished singing, Naruto fought the urge to clap his hands. He might surprise the woman. Instead, he made a compliment.

"Nice song," he said in a low voice and tone. It somehow managed to the woman's ear. She turned and Naruto gasped. She was very beautiful. Almost more beautiful than Tsunade (Tsunade was an old grandma but he admitted her beauty). But there was something that prevented her to show all her beauty. Her black eyes were filled with tears. Not only that, the salty water already trailed down to her pale and perfect shaped cheeks. But even so, she was still beautiful.

"Am I… wrong to say that your song is nice?" asked Naruto dumbly. He couldn't find any word to comfort that woman so… did it.

She suddenly went angry. "How come you said it's a nice song? Can't you figure the lyrics meaning?" she asked angrily.

Naruto took a step back fearfully. Why, beautiful females, were scary like demon when they angry but as beautiful as an angel when they didn't? Really, he didn't understand girls or womans.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't judge a song by only see its tone…" Naruto apologized. He didn't want to make any problem now. He had more than enough to face.

The woman's face turned softer and she sighed. She wiped her tears as she said, "No, I should be the one who apologized. My mind and heart weren't in a good mood so I snapped and threw my angriness to you. Once again, I'm sorry." She stood up. Now Naruto could see that she was very tall, almost as tall as Kisame. If you compared her to that shark Akatsuki, her head would reach Kisame's eyes.

"Uh." Naruto nodded. He silenced for a minute, thinking for a reply. "Uhm… miss, what are you doing here?" he asked curiously. He ignored the fact that he had been asking himself before.

"I…" she trailed.

"But if you don't want to tell me, you don't have to!" he quickly interrupted the woman. "I, myself has been wandering around here for no reason, so I figure what are you doing here is none of my concern."

"That's all right. I'm just doing my yearly routine," she said as she glanced to the huge Sakura tree. Naruto could see that a bouquet of aster flower was placed upon its front. "Uchihas are surely stupid, aren't they?" she asked loudly to herself.

"Huh?" asked Naruto with a confused tone.

"They placed a Sakura tree in a tropical zone of their village when it's supposed to be planted in a temperate zone. If they had expected it would bloom, then they are a total idiot." It was true what she said. The tree might be big, but it didn't look had grown greatly and healthily. It had green leafs but the color was a bit dull compared to other tropical plants.

"Maybe… they just wanted a decoration?" guessed the blonde.

"What the use of a flowered plant when it can't bloom its flowers? It's more than nothing but a complete waste of gene and talent," she said with an annoyed tone. "So, what were you doing back then?" she suddenly asked.

"Eh?"

"I saw you, in front of one of the residence's walls, crying," she said plainly.

Naruto blushed in embarrassment. So there was someone who had seen him crying like a pathetic child. Now he couldn't bring his face to face the woman.

The woman crossed her arms in front of her and looked down to Naruto, making her looked a bit bossy. "You don't have to be embarrassed. Humans cry when they feel like it, like I did just now."

"But you are a woman…" Naruto protested stubbornly, refusing that if he followed her advice he would feel better.

"Gender doesn't make a difference. All of us ever cried. Have you ever heard a baby that doesn't cry? I'm not. So are you. It won't hurt to cry," said the woman. She sounded like those thinking-that-he/she-is-wiser oldies.

"But it would hurt my pride," said the blonde bitterly.

SLAP

He didn't prepare for what came next. A hand landed on his cheek hardly enough to give a stung and sent him to the ground. Instead of staring angrily to her like anybody or the person he used to be would do, he only stared to the ground with dull eyes and placed his palm on his wounded cheek. She stared at him with filth.

"I'm very disappointed to all men. Why do they keep their pride so much? Will pride satiate you when you are starving? Will pride save you when you are in danger? Pride is nothing more than a foolish lie to cover your weakness. How come you expect you will be strong when you can't accept the truth? A strong person isn't judge only by the power. There may be people with strong physics but there are people with strong mind or heart. Power is an abstract thing. You can't rely only to your physical power. What's the use of power when you have weak mind? You'll end up like this Sakura tree. A complete waste of talent," said the woman angrily.

Naruto sat up and glared at her furiously. "What do you know about me? Like others said, I'm a stupid and idiot person. The thing I can rely on is my physical power. My talent is only in there! I don't have any other talent to rely on!"

"Being stupid or idiot doesn't mean you have to be foolish." Naruto was taken aback by her words. "If you don't have any other talent, then find it! We humans are blessed with more than one talent. No matter how stupid or idiot or crazy a person is, he or she has got at least two talents."

Naruto found the ground was the most interesting thing in the world now. He knew that there was no way he could win this battle of word and wisdom. "But…" he whispered, loud enough to be heard by the woman. "It's already over for me. I'm a broken kunai. There's no use left in me…"

The woman sighed. "You may have lost your talent, but it doesn't mean you've lost your potential."

Naruto immediately sent her a confused stare. "Eh?"

"Like a broken kunai, it may have lost its usage but it doesn't mean it has lost its potential. You could bring it to a blacksmith and have it disintegrated to a raw steel ore and make it into a new kunai," said her. Naruto's eyes widened as she continued, "This Sakura tree is the same case. The only thing you should do is find a gardener and have it removed to the right place and it will bloom its blossoms." She stared at Naruto to see the blond boy's reaction. Naruto bent down his head in shame. He had been a pathetic crybaby. This woman was right. The only thing he should do was to find another talent within him. Whether it will be cooking, crafting, or whatever it would mean a lot to him.

"Don't forget this. The time when you give up is the end of everything for you. If you fell, then you should stand again. If you met a dead end, then you should turn back and find another way. Success people do fall in their journey to reach their dream," she said as she kneeled in front of him and patted his head like a mother that was comforting her child.

Naruto knew she was right. Back then he had fallen many times, so many times until he lost his count. But he had never been crying pathetically and lost his hope like this. He kept trying to stand whenever he fell. He kept trying to face his enemy even his life was on the edge. And when he succeeded, he felt like he was resurrected. How could he forget something, the feeling that had been keeping him from totally breaking? The satisfaction of complying something, the proud-ness he felt when he succeeded in finishing his missions, the happiness to know that he was getting stronger each time he passed the problems and battles he faced.

She removed her hand from his head and placed her hands upon his shoulders. Her gaze was locked into Naruto's blue eyes. "And you must know. Strength is not important. It's your motive or reason. You could lose your strength but if you had the correct reason, the strength will come back to you, in different kind or not," said her as she tightened her grip on the blonde's shoulder.

"But…" once again, Naruto's head bent down, "…could I find a new talent?" he wasn't sure. He had been nothing but stamina freak and troublemaker back then. If the stamina was gone then what left was his troublesome side.

She smiled. "You won't know until you try, right?"

He stared at her. Somehow, the brunette managed to cheer him up. But… had he met her before? She was very familiar. Her black eyes and chocolate like hair… or maybe it was just his feelings.

The woman smiled wider when Naruto's dull gaze turned to lively.

"Thank you, miss…" came to think of it, they hadn't introduced each other.

"Kozueran," she said as she offered her hand to shake Naruto's hand.

"Uzumaki Naruto," said Naruto as he took her hand. He immediately pulled back.

"What?" asked Kozueran.

"No, it's just… your hand is cold," said Naruto. Her skin was fair and soft, but it felt cold like steel. Her fingers were delicate looking but they surprisingly had strong grip. Naruto didn't notice the coldness when she touched his shoulders because his pajamas were made of thick and warm material. And when she touched his head, he bet he had been boiling in anger so he tolerated it. He stared at her. "Are you sick?" he asked just to make sure. Her skin was pale from the first time he saw her.

"It may be. I haven't been eating well these days," she answered simply as if she didn't feel anything like a sick person supposed to.

Naruto doubted if she had told him the truth. But he shoved that thought away. He was used to be lied.

"Once again, thank you. I'm going home now. Good bye," said Naruto as he started to walk away. He didn't bent his head down like before. He stared to the front, to the future, not crying for his failure like before. He had enough crying. Now it was the time he worked.

"Wait."

Naruto stopped and turned. Kozueran was staring at him intently. It was clear in her face that she was battling between want to say her sentence or not. But it didn't take long before that expression turned into sureness.

"Maybe… I'm able to be your blacksmith."

"Huh?" asked Naruto.

"You said that you are a broken kunai, right?" her question was answered by Naruto's nod. "And I said that you have to find a blacksmith to repair a broken kunai. And I'm willing to be your blacksmith. I'll help you to find your talent."

Naruto's face brightened. "Really?" well, he didn't expect that his chance would come this fast.

"But…" her face darkened, "…before that, I have to make sure that you are willing to take any risk to achieve it. Are you willing to?" asked her.

Naruto smirked with his sure smirk he used to wear. "If that's my only option, I'll do it. Even the chance is very small." He answered surely.

"You could search another way," she said. She was tore between want this boy take her offer or not. She didn't want the boy break but she also didn't want the boy die.

"I may be able to. But isn't it better to work it with another person or people? It's faster that way…" he said as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Are you sure?"

"Why won't I? There would be no one except you that will help a weakling like me. Let alone take me as an apprentice or assistance. Besides, when you make a kunai or sword, there's still a risk it would break, right? If I didn't ready, then it was the same as I already give up." He smirked cockily to add his sureness.

She sighed tiredly. No matter how many times she would try, this boy wouldn't change his decision. "Fine. Firstly, I want to know what your problem is…"

Naruto told her everything. And it meant EVERYTHING from the start. He didn't know why could he tell her fluently or why he wanted to tell her everything. Funny was it? He couldn't tell his friends but he could tell it to a stranger he just met. But he felt that if he didn't tell her everything then she couldn't help him completely. She just remained silent when he told his story. After he was finished, she was thoughtful for a moment.

"Well, what can you do?" asked Naruto.

"I can't give you power, but…" she turned to face Naruto. "I can give you the chance to release your true power."

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto.

"Have you ever heard the word berserk?" asked Kozueran.

Naruto nodded. "If my memory isn't failing me, it means a state where a person becomes strong and goes wild because of heavy emotional pressure or something like that. I don't understand much with my thinking capability. But for the summary I think a person become very strong when he or she is angry, scared, or something."

"That's right. In a battle, many shinobi went berserk when they're nearly died or saw their friends killed. At that time they don't think anymore. What in their mind is kills all the enemies with all of your power. I'm thinking, if only I could pull that power without you being nearly die or see your friends die, then you may have your chance," explained Kozueran.

"Well, can you?" asked Naruto.

"I think there's a way. But…" she bent down her head. "…it's very dangerous. The chance of success is 1 from 100 — no — 1000. You could die or even worse."

"But at least it's not zero, right?" said Naruto with a confident smile on his face.

"You DO have no fear, don't you?" asked Kozueran as she stared Naruto.

"It's not I don't scared. I just have to take the risk. I've gone too far to get back," said Naruto.

"You are still young; you got many things to be done. You sure don't want to die that fast, do you?" asked her. She had to make him sure and aware what he was going to through.

"I got many things to be done but unfortunately I got only three years for it, thanks to the Kyuubi. I don't want to die before I make sure all Konoha villagers have known me as their greatest Hokage. I do not want to die in vain. That's…" he grinned cockily. "…my way of ninja."

Kozueran lifted her eyebrows. "You desire for medals?"

Naruto fought the urge to spit in front of the lady. "A very painful in nerve teammate of mine had questioned me the same thing. At that time I couldn't answer him. But now, I know…" he took out his forehead protector and held it in front of him. "…the time when I wore this forehead protector for the first time, I had sworn to protect the ones who acknowledged me, the ones who praised me for my success, and they are the ones who give me happiness." He silenced for a moment then continued, "And not only them, I will protect the innocent ones."

"What's your proof then? That you will protect everyone you know and everybody that's innocent once you get your power," asked Kozueran.

"I won't kill my enemies, no, I won't kill anybody," said Naruto in a very determined tone.

Kozueran was surprised. "How could you protect someone if you didn't kill?" asked her.

"Like Wiseman says, there are thousand roads to the town. I won't kill them but I will make them understand my pain, the pain of not being able to do anything, the feeling of uselessness. And if the luck is with me, they would be the strong ones who protect weak ones, not the strong ones who hurt the weak ones," said Naruto with his confident smile never leaving his face.

"Are you planning to turn the whole world into someone like you?" asked Kozueran mockingly.

"You could put it that way. But my goal is to bring peace to the world," said Naruto.

"How noble, could you do it in three years of your life?" asked Kozueran, now she was smirking like Naruto.

"Dead won't stop me," answered Naruto rather playfully.

"You mean you will continue to protect even as a ghost?" replied Kozueran playfully too.

"That can be arranged." _By Rhaera_, he added in his mind.

"Enough talking, let's get down into business," her tone was business like. "I will tell you my methods. You are free to disagree and leave once I told you. I will use one of my genjutsu techniques. This is a very special genjutsu. Once it's activated it will last one hundred days long and it's unbreakable. I plan to put your mental into its limit. And because of that, I use this torturing technique," she explained as simple as she could.

"What do you mean by 'torturing technique'?" asked Naruto with a hint of suspicion.

"You are a shinobi so you have more than enough heard that genjutsu is one way of torturing. Interrogators that specialized themselves in genjutsu torture put the captive in a genjutsu state. The victim would see images of their dying friends, their bad memories, and anything that would make the victim in a bad state of mental. Once the victim couldn't take it anymore, he or she would break, and they won't care about anything except their sadness. They would do almost everything that is commanded to them, including spill important information. My genjutsu is the same thing. It never has been my favorite jutsu, but to put someone into berserk, this jutsu is the best. Because there will be no one who would be able to save you except yourself. Do you agree? This is the not best but it's the only option you and I have." She waited for Naruto's reaction.

Naruto closed his eyes. He seemed to be thinking this very hard.

"What happened after one hundred days?" asked the blonde.

"It depends. If you managed to fight back, then you would be able to obtain the power by remembering those feelings that made the power emerged. But if the hundredth day passed and you didn't wake up…" she trailed.

"It's the same as the end of Uzumaki Naruto, eh?" finished Naruto calmly.

"Even you woke up, there's a big possibility you got your mental hurt badly or to put it simple, you had gone crazy."

Naruto went silent.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't offer better option," said Kozueran.

"That's okay. At least you've tried," Naruto paused. "So, are we going to begin or not?"

"Yes." After that she walked to close the range between her and Naruto. She stared to Naruto with unreadable expression.

"Naruto…"

"Yes?"

"Why do you trust me? I could harm you, even kill you…"

"Do you have to?" he asked. Kozueran didn't answer. "Besides, I don't need reason to trust somebody…"

She sighed with relief. "Thank you," she said as she closed her eyes. She seemed in a deep concentration. Naruto waited. He actually asked himself why he easily trusted the woman. He had been hurt by the ones he trust like Mizuki, Kabuto, and Sasuke.

"Look to my eyes," she ordered suddenly.

He looked. And the last thing he saw was two pair of silver orbs before his world seemed to be engulfed with darkness…

oOoOo

**Finally it finished. I managed to get a time to write this, but still, the fact that I still have final exams doesn't change and because of that I still won't update frequently. I hope I didn't torture Naruto too much. Tell me if you enjoyed it and I'll be overjoyed to know it (for the simpler meaning, I want review). Thank you to the ones who reviewed me, you have special part in my heart. **


	4. Scroll 04: The Evacuation of the Sands

**Scroll 04: The Evacuation of the Sands**

Kozueran watched as Naruto's body went limp and fell to the ground. The blonde's eyes were half closed and blank. It looked like his soul had left his body.

"Wakaya," she called.

A wavy black haired boy appeared behind her.

"Yes?"

"Take him to his friends," ordered her.

"Yes, mother," he replied as he went to Naruto and threw one of the blonde's hand over his shoulders with one of his hand holding Naruto's waist to support him.

.oOoOo.

"Sakura-san!"

Sakura turned to the voice who called her. A blue haired girl was running to her.

"Oh, it's you, Hinata. What's the matter? You looked miserable…" said Sakura as Hinata stopped and sighed.

"Finally I found you. Did you see Naruto?" asked Hinata with worry clear on her tone and face.

Sakura shook her head. "No, I didn't. Why? Did he forget something? Or did he make another trouble?" asked Sakura with narrowed eyes. She honestly didn't want any trouble to face in this kind of situation.

Hinata shook her head wildly so her hair was waving around. "No, no. He didn't make any trouble."

"So what is it?" asked Sakura.

"Well, you see… I was accompanying him back then when he took a walk. After we reached the bridge you and your team usually met, he told me to not follow him anymore because he was going home. So, we separated. After a while I came to his house to make sure he really reached his house. I found the house isn't that bad because only a little part of it broken so it's livable. But I didn't find him in his house. At first I thought he was taking his dinner at Ichiraku ramen, but I didn't find him there. The owner said he didn't see Naruto too! I know I don't need to worry much about him because he may be home longer than I think, but… I'm still worried," explained the blue haired girl.

Sakura was tore between helping Hinata or not. Tsunade had ordered every medical ninjas available to help the villagers. But… she thought it could wait a moment or two.

"Fine, let's find him," said Sakura.

"Thank you!" Hinata nearly squealed in happiness. Just when they were going to walk, they saw two people. One of them was a similar blonde the other one was a boy with black, short, and wavy black hair. When the boys got closer, the two girls were more than sure that the blonde was Naruto.

"Naruto!" shouted the two of them as they ran towards the boys. The one who supported Naruto looked to them. He had been looking to the ground to make sure Naruto's legs didn't trip his.

"Is he your friend?" he asked as his black eyes observed the two kunoichi.

"Yes. What's happened to him?" asked Sakura.

"I don't know. I just found him laid on the ground and I can't just left him," he didn't lie. He was just ordered to bring this boy to his friends. Whatever happened to him back then only this blonde boy and his mother knew.

"Thank you very much. We are sorry to bother you," said Hinata as she bowed to the boy. After that she went to his side to get Naruto out of the boy's arms. Sakura immediately went to help her. They each took Naruto's arms and put them over their shoulders. Now that Naruto was on their tow, Sakura had a chance to observe the boy. The boy was rather… out of place. His clothes made him looked like that. He wore a black t-shirt with a light gold colored jacket. He rolled the jacket's sleeves so they displayed his arms from the elbow to palm. He wore a pair of white shorts that covered his knees with a grey belt tightened around his waist. His fingerless black gloves covered his palms and most of his wrists. Sakura could see a plate of steel or whatever it was that covered the joint between his fingers and palm. It was too white for a steel and too hard looking for aluminum that was used as the basic material of their forehead protector. His shoes were weird too. Unlike their shoes that revealing their toe fingers and heels, it completely wrapped his legs. And it used laces to make it in a firm position not Velcro buttons. He wore a pair of black socks to match his white shoes which it was rare in Konoha to wear something white for their footwear and black as their socks.

"Is something matter?" asked the boy. Sakura became aware that she was staring — underline this word — intently to him. It was not his fault to feel uncomfortable.

Sakura shook her head. "Nothing. It's just your clothes…" then she shook her head preventing the boy to say his excuse. "Ah, maybe it's the country's newest fashion, sorry to make you uncomfortable…" Konoha was a bit isolated from the cities of fire country so it was an odd thing to see modern clothes.

"Don't worry. I already used to the odd stares everybody is giving me. I have to go back now. Make sure you two take care of him. I don't want to carry him again if he collapsed again. He's a lot heavier than he seemed," said the boy. He paused for a minute before saying, "I don't know Konoha has such pretty and cute girls."

The two girls blushed. They looked like steamed crabs. "W-what?" Sakura managed to stammer while Hinata was too embarrassed to let her voice out.

"Oh man, the female ninjas here are so feminine and good looking. Where in my place the females are good looking but tomboy and have bad tempered…" he sighed. "Ah, enough for ramblings, I should go now. Good-bye!" and he turned and ran through the street. Now that his back was turned, Sakura could see a picture of five pointed star on his jacket's back. It was rare to see someone with a symbol on his clothes' back. Usually only clans that that wore symbol on their back, signaling which clan they were came from. But Sakura never saw a clan with that symbol, either with her own eyes or in books. It might be just his style, judging how weird he looked. Not long, he was out of eyes range.

"What—" Sakura started. "—that boy was trying to pull?" she asked to no one.

"I think… it's his way to say good-bye to girls…" said Hinata. She had never been praised by another male beside Naruto before and now her heart was filled with pink clouds and flower.

"Oy, don't tell me you've smitten to that boy…" said Sakura with a hint of fear in her tone. She didn't need someone that was only staring to the sky, imagining the loved one like she had done before (you know who she imagined: Sasuke). Not now, not in this troublesome situation. Hinata was just looked like a lovesick puppy. And she was the type that fallen in love easily.

"N-no, I'm not!" said Hinata. _My love is just for Naruto only!_ Wait a minute… what did she just think? Then she blushed redder. "B-besides, should we take Naruto to somewhere now?" she decided to change the topic before she exploded like a volcano.

"You're right. Let's take him to Tsunade," said Sakura as she shifted her grip on Naruto.

"Eh? Why to Tsunade?" in Hinata's eyes, Naruto was no more than a sleeping boy.

"Look to his eyes and you'd see what I mean," Sakura ordered.

Hinata looked to Naruto's eyes. They were half closed and blank. Almost soulless. She would think that he was already dead if she couldn't feel the heaving chest and slightly hear the calm breath. And the boy's body, she wasn't sure if it was just her feeling, was being colder and colder. Naruto could be in danger and if they didn't act fast, he could have been worse. Hinata faced Sakura and spoke with silent glance. Sakura nodded and they went to see Tsunade.

.oOoOo.

It was boring. He was only sitting on the bed and stared to the ceiling. To be caged in a room with no more than bed with its pillow and blanket, chair, two doors (one was locked; served as way in and out of the room meanwhile the other one was a simple toilet) was not his favorite thing to do. The window was no more than one round hole with bars. Even without that bars, he still couldn't get out because its size made it passable only by a baby. Well, at least he still got a bed and a toilet. It could have been worse.

He looked to the locked door. He knew there were ANBUs out there, guarding the door, and more outside especially around his room. He was brought to an old but big house at the outskirt of the village. He praised at Tsunade's keen sense. She brought him to this place so when he escaped he wouldn't lay a hand on innocent villagers. She also had been cautious. She had shackled him. With the strongest metal Konoha has. The shackles were tight around his wrist but the chain was loose enough to make him a little bit free when he did his daily activities like eating. And one another fact, the shackles was engraved by special chakra sealing spell so he wouldn't be able to use any destructive jutsu.

But all of that wouldn't and didn't stop him from being sat still like a good child. The chakra sealing spell would do nothing against him. It would do nothing because he wouldn't use ninja techniques that required chakra. He would use his natural talent: the advances of onmyoujitsu. The spell wasn't as strong as the one he usually use to seal a demon or spirit chakra, but enough to make him lose nearly half of his power. But half of his power was more than enough to initiate 'The Shadow of Sun God' skill. With some cunning tricks here and there he would be able to go out without having the guards knew it.

He didn't waste his time. He performed some hand seals and stopped at one. The hand seals were not the ones ninjas used. They were his village's special hand seals. The hand seals wouldn't do many good to ninjas because it only released and control spiritual power. Ninjas' hand seals were the ones who released and control the mixture of spiritual and physical power. And because he only used spiritual power, the chakra sealing spell wouldn't do much to stop this technique.

"Rei's special technique: The Shadow of Sun God," he mumbled softly. After that, his body glow a bit for a moment, and then after the light died his body slumped to the bed with the hand seal still intact.

Outside, on a lucky building that still had its roof, a circle of soft yellow light emerged. From the circle, a yellow liquid emerged slowly but surely. It gracefully shaped a boy's body. After it done, colors quickly came out of it and it became clear who the one it cloned. The clone of the green haired Reikage stared to his hand and moved his fingers as if he was testing his nerve. But actually he wanted to test his control of the clone. The Shadow of Sun God skill was a nearly perfect skill of cloning. It wouldn't vanish with one mere attack like bunshin, kage-bunshin, mizu-bunshin or anything. But because the clone requires half of his soul, when the clone hurt, his true body was hurt too. And this skill only formed one clone. But it had its advantage. No one would able to detect his chakra because he was kind of ghost now. But he still could touch something or somebody and attack it. This skill was similar to Ino's Shintenshin. Rhaera realized that Ino's skill was originated from his village. Shintenshin was a basic requirement to pass the examination from D class to C class.

Rhaera looked around. Well, it was more like smelling, sensing, and hearing around. He found that he was nearby the place where he was caged. Another weakness of this jutsu, it couldn't perform the clone to the place the user wanted to. And the performed clone was always near the place the real body was. _"I guess I really did push my luck…"_ Rhaera sighed mentally. He was already lucky when the Hokage was wise enough to not make him enemy. He had succeeded avoiding his village from making foe and what was the reason he couldn't this time?

"Tsunade-sama!" a voice entered his keen hearing sense. He recognized it as Sakura's voice. He went to the voice source by jumping from roof to roof. Well, it was more like teleporting from roof to roof because without a sight that match Uchihas' they only could see he was disappearing from one roof and appearing on another roof. Finally, he reached his destination. He made his ears and nose to their best and trying to suggest what was happening. He could smell Sakura, Tsunade, Naruto, and that Hyuuga girl whatever her name was (he met her only once and just was told that she was one of the Hyuugas). But there was something weird about Naruto. He could feel it. The blonde's energy was too active to be sleeping but Naruto was not moving. It looked like he was battling in his dream.

"Sakura, I think I told you to…" Tsunade stopped her words when she turned and looked. "What happened to Naruto?" she asked.

"Well, that's why we come to see you. A boy found him and we couldn't figure what's wrong with him. No wounds or disease. He was like in a genjutsu state but I can't be sure enough. Could you help him?" asked Sakura.

Tsunade put her hand under her chin, while her eyes examined Naruto. It was true what Sakura said. No injuries or indication of disease. "I won't promise since even you, my apprentice, having a hard time to figure out what's wrong. But I'll try. Let's go to the tower. I have a special medical lab and room there." Sakura and Hinata were about to ask how a medical lab, room or whatever could exist in a tower that was only used as the place of important people meeting and discussion, where they received their mission, or where ninjas organized the administrations or paperwork when Tsunade answered for them. "The influence of Hokage, I guess…"

Rhaera, who was hearing all the conversation, also wondered what happened to Naruto._ A genjutsu like state but it's not definitely a genjutsu state?_ He had a bad guess about what happened to Naruto and had a bad feeling but he hoped that he was wrong.

Too bad for him, being a Reikage and an onmyouji meant he had good experience, information, and good intuition.

Which it was simpler to say, he ALWAYS right.

And this time, like any other time, his mind and feeling didn't fail him.

Tsunade examined Naruto. It was almost there was nothing wrong. No wounds, no disease, no POISON, and whatever. Oh joy. If Sakura said that he was like under a genjutsu, she would say that Naruto was like an empty shell. Still alive, but didn't have a soul to make it lively. The flow of chakra, she knew by ordered Hinata to examine it, was weird. He was sleeping, but his chakra flow was the one when someone used in battle when performing a jutsu. That was way too impossible. It was acceptable if his chakra was like when he was in conscious state. Tsunade had tried to search this kind of weird _condition_ in the library with help from Sakura and Hinata. But until now, they found nothing helpful. They were too busy and frustrated so they didn't notice Rhaera (who was watching them all the time from the beginning) was battling between helping them or not. But finally, his kind self took over.

"Maybe I could help you."

The females quickly raised their head and saw that Rhaera was sitting on one of the highest bookshelf. Why didn't they recognize him earlier?

Ok. This was careless, crazy, stupidly idiotic, foe making idea. Rhaera scolded himself. But it was no use regretting about what he had done. Just look at the (may be) bright side. He might gain some trust from them by helping them.

"You," the Hokage hissed. "How could you escape?" she asked. But actually she knew what the answer was. HE was a Reikage. And looking at the power show off from Miyabi, it didn't take much to believe that he was more than capable to escape.

"I'm not escaping," said Rhaera honestly.

"But you are here…" said Tsunade.

"I'm not really here. It's my clone that's here," explained Rhaera innocently.

Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "Your clone?"

"Yes. Don't worry. I can't harm you because I can't touch you." He jumped down and suddenly attacked Sakura with his hand. Sakura was surprised and couldn't act. Tsunade and Hinata couldn't act too. But his hand never hurt Sakura. Because the hand went through Sakura's belly like a mere low level genjutsu. Sakura gaped as Rhaera pulled his hand back. "See?"

Of course Rhaera didn't lie. He never lied. It was very unmanly and cowardly to lie. His clone could be hurt and touched, but only in certain conditions. First, he couldn't use much of his power. It was not that he didn't have any remain, but he had to save it. Who knew if a person like Miyabi came again and rampage the village once again? This jutsu requires a lot of chakra and concentration to be perfect. Second, he couldn't attempt it in an unsafe place. No one could guarantee that nobody would kill his real body. Half of his concentration was set to be ready when an enemy attacks. And the last was only a Spirit village's technique and another spirit that could harm him in this state.

"So, are you going to let me examine him or not?" asked Rhaera, snatching the females' attentions.

Tsunade only said, "Uh," because of her shock. Rhaera took that as a yes.

Rhaera didn't bother to open the door that connects the library to the medical lab. He just went through it which made him required thoughts like: "He's really a ghost." But because they couldn't let him alone with Naruto, they followed him.

Rhaera used his power to check Naruto. He put a hand above the blonde's head and soon, his palm glowed with blue chakra. After a moment the glow died and he put his hand to his side. He was silent for a long moment until Tsunade fed up and decided to bring the boy out of his dreamland.

"So tell me what you think…" she thought for a moment before adding, "genius…"

Sakura and Hinata wondered why Tsunade acted cold to Rhaera especially when they heard 'how could you escape' part in the conversation. They had been silent through the conversation, trying to figure out what was going on. Finally, curiosity won.

"Uhm, Tsunade-sama?" asked Sakura.

"Yes?" Tsunade almost spited.

"Why do you… act so cold towards Rhaera? As far as I know, he didn't do anything wrong…" Sakura asked.

Oh shit. She forgot about the girls. They weren't there when she interrogated Rhaera. It was no wonder why they questioned her hostility toward the Reikage.

Tsunade sighed. She figured it would be better to tell the truth. Sooner or later everybody will need to know anyway. "He didn't do anything wrong but…"

"…you believe I have a connection with the culprit. And as far as I know, I am…" Rhaera continued Tsunade's sentence which made him required a glare from the Hokage.

"The culprit? Of what?" asked Hinata.

"The one who made blocks of ice fell on Konoha…" answered Tsunade.

"What? I thought it was only a… weather antic…" commented Sakura. What else could explain something like blocks of ice fell on a tropical zone?

"I would think so if I didn't see the fight he had…" mumbled Tsunade, audible enough to Sakura and Hinata.

"Fight?" asked Hinata.

"Enough about questioning, you could ask her for explanation later. Do you want to know about Naruto's condition or not?" asked Rhaera.

"Sure, go on," replied Tsunade after she gave an eye signal to make the girls wait until this was done.

"As you can see, Naruto is in a soulless like state. In my village, the condition of soulless happens quite often when a person's soul leave his or her body to enter some restricted areas. I won't bother with details since it would take so long. But basically, in my village the souls could return to their body, thanks to our onmyoujitsu skill. But Naruto was different. His soul is never leaving his body. So he's not soulless," explained Rhaera. Tsunade nodded in understand but Sakura and Hinata gawked.

"I'm sorry to bother, but… what are you talking about? I understand about Naruto's condition but what do you mean about onmyoujitsu?" asked Sakura.

Rhaera sighed. "In case you forget, do I need to explain once again about onmyoujitsu?" Rhaera was EVER explained this with details and long examples.

Sakura slammed down her fist to her palm. "OH! That one…"

"I can hardly believe that Tsunade said that you're the smartest girl around…" commented Rhaera bitterly.

Sakura flushed with embarrassment. "Come on! I just forget because things are going hectic because of _your_ people…" she pressed some tone in the 'your' word.

"Sakura! Watch your mouth! He's the leader of the Rei village! In short, he's the Reikage!" hissed Tsunade with warning tone. Did this girl want Konoha to make a foe against these… monsters?

Sakura pointed a finger to Rhaera. "What? He? A kage?"

Tsunade sighed. "Though I don't believe him completely yet, the situation made me."

Rhaera sneered. "It's not _my people_ who did it. It's a traitor. And a traitor _does not_ work under _my_ command."

Sakura had no choice but glared to Rhaera while her inner self shouting: "Just wait until we are alone!" From the start she never really likes the Reikage as a teammate. He was bossy (maybe because he was a leader of a village). And he always was thinking that he was the one who knew more. But sadly, in the truth (Sakura's inner self screamed bloody loud when admitting this) he was.

"So, can I continue?" asked Rhaera, seeing that he won.

"Yes, please," Tsunade threw another warning glare to the girls, hoping they would catch what she meant. Thankfully, they did.

"Naruto isn't soulless. Now there's one question left. Is he under a state of genjutsu? I think he is. But not a usual genjutsu you've encounter," explained Rhaera.

"So what's _exactly_ going on with him?" asked Tsunade becoming impatience.

"He's under the '100 Days of Illusion' jutsu," answered Rhaera.

"What the heck is that?" asked Sakura, letting her inner self control.

"It's an unbreakable genjutsu technique. Last one hundred days long. A very cruel torturing technique," explained the archer plainly as if it didn't matter.

"I don't like what you said…" commented Sakura.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Hinata.

"We can't do anything. Like I said, that jutsu is unbreakable. If you forced to break it, Naruto would break too," explained the Reikage as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Are you suggesting that we should wait until he wakes up? After we letting you examine him, only this result we got?" asked Tsunade with an annoyed tone.

"Don't get angry to me. It can't be helped. Even I cannot break the jutsu. It's too risky. The only one who could help Naruto is himself. All we can do is waiting until one hundred days. Oh, yeah. We should tie him to his bed too, and of course, with your strongest bindings. This jutsu is a torturing technique, who knows if Naruto would gone wild? And if more than that he didn't wake up, consider it as the end of Naruto," said the archer.

Tsunade could only nod in agreement. She would later order her medical ninjas to prepare a bed and strap Naruto to it.

"But…" Hinata began. Everybody looked to her. "Why would somebody do something this cruel to Naruto-kun? He didn't do anything _that_ wrong to deserve this…"

Everybody went silent. Hinata was true. Naruto might be a troublemaker but he didn't deserve this.

.oOoOo.

One of the gate guards yawned. It was boring to just stand and guarding the village's gate. But he knew that his duty was very important, so he tried his best to suppress his sleepiness.

"Sleepy already?" asked one of his partners that stood at the right side of the gate.

"Yeah, I know I shouldn't attend my cousin's birthday party. He _did_ have a hangover…" he yawned again.

"Isn't it good enough that you weren't consuming alcoholic drinks?" asked his partner.

He yawned again before mumbling, "Whatever."

His partner grinned then looked up where their female partner was. She was the long-range watcher. Her position was on the tower that was also the part of the gate. "Hey! Keiko! How things are going up there?"

"All is clear, Hatsuba! The sky is red, the clouds are orange, the sun is setting, the forest is green and almost dark —ah, there's a cute owl there!—, the ground is blood-free— wait a minute. There are bloods!" yelled Keiko.

"What?" Hatsuba asked incase his ear was wrong.

"I said blood! …Wait a sec! Look to the front, Hatsu!"

Hatsuba complied.

"What is that?" he gaped as his male partner followed his gaze and gaped too.

"No! The question is: what are those?" shouted Keiko.

"Close the gate!" Hatsuba ordered.

"What?" asked his partners in the same time.

"I said close the gate! I think those things are… whatever! Mashima! Get your sleepy ass up and help me!"

.oOoOo.

"I hate that jutsu." Sakura said suddenly.

Rhaera nodded in agreement. "Yup, and it isn't my favorite technique. Never."

"What? Do you mean you can do it?" asked Sakura as she glared at Rhaera with suspicion.

"I can do it but I didn't do it. Only two people in this world that could do this jutsu," said Rhaera.

"Who are they?" asked Tsunade.

"Me and—"

"Tsunade-sama! This is bad!" suddenly Shizune came in by rammed the poor door until it collapsed. "Uhh… am I interrupting?" she asked when she received devil glares from Tsunade and Sakura.

Tsunade put her hands on her hips. She would make sure Shizune would pay the damage (it meant the door) by her salary. "Yes, you are. Now report the thing you want to tell me. I don't have time."

"Ah, yes! There are sand people in front of our village's gate! It seems that they want to enter our village!" said Shizune as she straightened her pose.

Tsunade lifted her eyebrows. After the ice stampede, now it was the sand people? "How many are they?"

"Uhm… I'm not sure but I think it's the entire village."

"WHAT?" Tsunade shouted, Sakura yelled, and Hinata gasped meanwhile Rhaera only furrowed his eyebrows.

"Are they want to attack us or something?" asked Tsunade worriedly. They just had fallen ices on them and they surely would lose if they were attacked now. She was glad when Shizune shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. Many of them are heavily injured and they are demanding to enter the village," said Shizune, putting her hands in front of her to protect her from Tsunade's outburst. Tsunade groaned and placed her hand over her forehead with frustration. "What should we do, Tsunade-sama?" asked the black haired woman.

"Uuhh… what's their purpose?" asked the Hokage.

"We don't know yet. But I believe they don't want to attack us, judging how heavily injured they are looking. They maybe are just asking help from us. But we're not sure yet, so we don't let them enter the village," said Shizune.

Suddenly sounds of wings flapping captured their attention. They turned to the source and found a white bird was flying around. The bird's white fur was very white until it seemed almost glowing. It flew a circle before finally landed on Rhaera's shoulder. It put its beak near Rhaera's ear and moved it as if it was whispering something to the Reikage. Rhaera nodded a few times and frowned when listening to the bird. After it finished, it jumped to Rhaea's palm. Rhaera blew it and suddenly, there was no bird. Only a paper charm left. Suddenly a fire lit from its corner and the charm immediately burned into ashes.

"What's that?" asked Tsunade, didn't bother to hide her awe.

"A shikigami. We onmyoujis use that as message sender," explained Rhaera.

"And what that thing told you?" asked Tsunade.

"It seemed," Rhaera explained with frown, it seemed that he had received bad news, because frown never indicates something good, "that a village on a desert country of the west was attacked by sand-eater."

"Are you trying to say that Sand village was attacked by… what's the thing?" asked Tsunade.

"Sand-eater. It's a spirit that lives in deserts. It eats and controls sand. They're the one who make a sand storm, sand typhoon, and other things that includes sand. So, if the entire people of Sand village are here, it's no wonder," said Rhaera.

"They are evacuating," mumbled Tsunade.

Rhaera put his hand under his chin. "They could escape is a real miracle too. But it was strange at the first place of why sand-eaters attack the village. Even they could control sand, they are quite calm and kind spirit. So the option that left is…"

"Those traitors of your village," finished Tsunade.

"Yup, and they are getting impatience…" said Rhaera.

Tsunade sighed. "Fine. I'll deal with them. Shizune, take Naruto to rest in my medical lab and strap him into his bed with the strongest binding available."

Shizune decided to not question her upper's command. "Yes, Tsunade-sama!" and then she went to do her task.

Tsunade threw a glance to Rhaera before leaving the room. "We'll continue this later. Hinata, you help Shizune to take care Naruto. Sakura, you follow me. And you," she pointed to Rhaera, not sure if the archer knew that she was referring to him. "Don't hurt anybody."

"I already done it if I want," Rhaera sighed.

Tsunade threw another glare but decided not to prolong the matter. She exited the room and went to the front gate.

Rhaera sighed again. Things were becoming from bad to worse. If he didn't act fast, a war would break. He didn't want _that_ to be happened again. The reason why he shut off the village connection from outer world… he shook his head. Staying here would do nothing. He decided to find his underlings. With that, he vanished from the room.

.oOoOo.

"Let us in!"

"Yeah! We come here not for attacking this village but to ask help! So let us in!"

People from Sand were starting to make havoc. Hatsuba and Mashima were getting nervous. They were only two (Keiko was calling for help) meanwhile the sand have one hundred or thousand. But duty is duty and rule is rule. They had to follow it.

"Please calm down! We're asking our leader's permission!" shouted Hatsuba.

"Scram with that! We've signed the peace treaty thing, so we have the right to enter your village!" shouted an old man.

"Yeah, that's right!" the others followed him.

"Can't you guys _please_ calm for a fucking minute? You just popped up at the gate and demanding to go in! We don't know your reason!" shouted Mashima who was getting impatience.

"Reason? There's plenty of it! Can't you see that we're heavily injured?" asked a man.

"Please, let us in, my son is terribly injured," begged a woman.

"And my pregnant wife is on labor! How could you expect us to be calm!" yelled a man.

And the crowd began noisy again.

"SHUT UP! WHERE'S YOUR KAZEKAGE ANYWAY?" shouted Mashima, defeating all sounds.

Everybody fell silent. Now that he mentioned it, it seemed they didn't notice that their Kazekage was not available. If their Kazekage was here, he sure could beg to the Konoha.

Mashima sighed. "Finally, peace."

"We don't care! Let us in!" another shout turned on the adrenalin once again.

"Oh, shit," cursed Mashima as the crowd got louder and louder.

At the other side of the gate, Tsunade was talking with Keiko.

"Tsunade-sama, I've never saw so many sand people in my life! I'm more than sure it's the entire village!" Keiko pleaded Tsunade to believe her words. And it wasn't hard since the loud noises out there were helping.

"I believe you. They are heavily injured, right? I'm sure they are asking medical attention. Keiko, Sakura, I ordered you two to prepare medical posts for them. I know our hands are full for our people already, but we can't just turn them down," ordered Tsunade.

"We understand!" replied the two kunoichis and then they went off.

Tsunade, with her monstrous power, opened the gate by pushing it.

"Calm down ple—" Hatsuba who was trying in vain to calm the bunch of mad hyenas, stopped his sentence as he heard and felt the gate was being opened. He and Mashima quickly got away from the gate and the Sand people fell silent.

"What the heck—" Mashima stared with wide eyes to the gate. He was even more startled when he realized only one person that was opening the gate. But he feared more to the Hokage when he knew she was the one who was opening the gate.

"H-Hokage-sama?" gasped Hatsuba. They used mechanism to close the gate but she? With her bare hands, successful prying the (VERY heavy) gate opened?

"You guys are allowed to enter Konoha," said Tsunade after finishing her task and placed a hand on her hip as if it was an easy job.

The Sand people didn't move. They were shocked by the power show off from Tsunade. They learned to fear the Hokage even more.

Tsunade lifted her eyebrows. Just a second ago, these people were like a bunch of mad dog that were begging for a food. But now they were a shocked goldfish. "What are you waiting for? Go. I even prepared medical care for you."

The Sand people were back to their sense. But they were calmer now, entering the village with walking and even stumbling. Not exactly like Hatsuba and Mashima's expected. They expected the people to be entering the village like mad bulls. But guess what? They thought the Hokage had done a very good job in calming their distress.

"Am I showing off too much?" asked Tsunade after the last person of Sand entered.

The two shinobis shook their head. Only idiots who would dare to challenge the fifth.

"No, you gave the right dose…"

The Sand people were shocked when they saw Konoha was no better than their own village. Buildings were now rubbles. Big blocks of ice were everywhere. Yet, Konoha still received them. The villagers could even still laugh after the huge damages. They wondered if this was Konoha's Will of Fire people said.

Temari, who was lucky enough to just get some minor injuries, saw Shikamaru who was sitting on a chair besides Kiba's bed. Kiba has a sling for his broken arm and was sitting on his bed but it didn't prevent him to be cheerful.

"Hey, sand buddies! Got ice stampede like us?"

.oOoOo.

Tsunade was once again in her office. This time she was accompanied by Baki and other sand nins. One of them was a very old woman. And Tsunade knew who she was. That Chiyo of the Sand, the one who had mixed troublesome poisons during the Great War. She didn't look that happy too, seeing her old enemy. But what bother Tsunade was the absent of the Kazekage. Hadn't he arrived yet? Maybe he was late because he was helping the villagers to evacuate. The only thing that could rival sand-eaters was the Shukaku that was sealed inside of him. But she didn't know the details until the sand tell their story.

Chiyo opened the conversation. "You look as young as you could, Tsunade. Is it by natural or by your ninjutsu and medicines?" she asked. She managed to say Tsunade's name without spit it or said 'slug woman'. But she was a bad actor at voice.

Tsunade tried to smile warmly but failed at the warm part. She knew she always looked ugly and scary with suppressed smiles. As she thought, a scorpion would never lose its poison, wouldn't it? "Actually it's both of the option. I'm beautiful and my medicines and skills are helping me to make it intact. You don't have to be jealous, Chiyo-_san_. You looked healthy for someone who is older than me. I guess sand has done nothing to your health, has it?" actually, she was trying her best not to be _that_ sarcastic. She knew she was being childish and unwise. The sands came here to demand help and personal grudge was better to be stay out of the way. But well, that old hag started it.

"Hmph! Me, jealous of you? I even never dreamed it!" Chiyo nearly yelled.

"Good. Because I don't like it when someone jealous of my beauty and youngness. I feel fate isn't fair every time someone jealous to me," replied Tsunade with more sarcastic words. How she loved this chance, she was nearly free to attack Chiyo and the hag wouldn't be able to counter it because the sand needed Konoha's help now. But she had to keep it limited because she didn't want another Suna (Sand) VS Konoha because of childish fight between their old women right now.

"You…" Chiyo hissed.

Shizune, who had been silent because of fear and nervousness, had decided to break the fight, "Uhh… ano… I believe we have something important to discuss here?"

"You are right," said Tsunade as she leaned to her chair. The sands (except Chiyo) were having a hard time to suppress their sigh. They had to thank Shizune sometime later. Women's fight was never a pleasant thing to be held or watched.

Baki decided to be the one who lead the conversation for the sand. He couldn't let Chiyo and Tsunade had a quarrel again. "Firstly, we want to say thank you because you let us enter your village, even your village's condition is… not that good. So I, Baki, as the sand village's representation, give you our thanks."

"You're welcome. But let us ditch the formal conversation. We're allies now, and I don't really like a cold and formal conversation. Don't you agree?" asked Tsunade.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," replied Baki.

Tsunade lifted her eyebrows. "Speaking of leader, where's your Kazekage? I heard Gaara is your new Kazekage and I know he's not the type that would be left behind…"

Baki looked down with a frustrated expression on his face. "You see, that's our main problem. We haven't spotted our Kazekage since he left to help our villagers escape as the bait for those…" Baki couldn't find the right word.

"Sand-eaters," finished Tsunade.

"Eh?" everybody turned their attention to Tsunade.

"Those monsters that attacked your village are called sand-eaters. They caused the sand gone wild, didn't they?" asked Tsunade.

Baki looked to Chiyo before replied, "Yes, they are. At first we thought that it was just a mere sand storm but when those monsters showed up, we ordered the villagers to evacuate. But how do you know that it was monsters which attacked us?"

Tsunade shrugged. "An expert told me." The answer was short and honest.

"An expert?" asked Chiyo.

"Well, you see, we just have got ice blocks. And this person we're talking about knows who cause it. And we assumed it was the same person or at least the same group who controlled the monsters and attacked your village…" explained Tsunade.

Chiyo narrowed her eyes. "So you are saying that those monsters were controlled by someone? What kind of bullshit is that?"

Tsunade sighed. She knew this would happen. "Well, I know it's hard to believe, but what else that could explain the situation? Those sand-eaters, like their name, live in desserts. And why they attacked your village after you had never been attacked by them? You surely didn't do anything that angers them, right? Wait, you and I don't even _know_ how to anger them…" said Tsunade.

"Uh…" Chiyo lost her tounge.

"But… why they attacked us? And why ices fell on your village?" asked Baki.

"That… is what we want to find out. By the way if you are here now, then you were attacked around three days ago, right?" asked Tsunade.

"Actually it was four days ago. Though we didn't stop, the villagers' injuries were quite in the way. Luckily, we didn't get any problem from river country, judging that we looked like immigrating bulls. We expected that our Kazekage was already here, to ask the permission from you to enter your village so when we were here, we didn't meet any problem. But since he wasn't here, we think that there's something happen on our Kazekage…" explained Baki.

Tsunade placed a hand on her head. "Do you think that there would be next?"

"What?" asked Chiyo and Baki.

"I mean next hidden village or place to be attacked. After we, Sand and Leaf, do you think there would be another?" asked Tsunade.

"I don't know. But neither of the option is good," replied Chiyo.

Tsunade lifted her eyebrows. "And why is that?"

"Both of our villages are in a vulnerable state. If there is no other village that is attacked, we would be in danger. By now, words would spread about our village vulnerability. And if we have a bad luck, other villages will see this as a good chance to attack. Especially to your village," explained Chiyo.

"But if other villages are attacked, another war will break," continued Tsunade. "Especially if they know who the culprits are…"

"You know?" asked Baki.

"Not really. But I've seen the face that did this to my village and his power. His ability is god-like," said Tsunade. And she didn't exaggerate it. Who could make ices fell on Konoha? Tsunade only knew one and maybe two.

"You are kidding. No one has the power that near a god except the Shukaku and Kyuubi's hosts," grunted Chiyo.

Tsunade shook her head. "I'm not. You should see how our hospital looks like. I can guarantee that my village wouldn't run out ice stock for one or two years," said Tsunade.

"And why is that?" asked Baki.

"You see, the blocks of ice fell on Konoha because _a battle_ between _two_ people. And that battle was held at our hospital's roof. The hospital didn't collapse, but it looks like a giant ice skating field. For the simpler meaning, it's frozen all over," explained Tsunade.

"Are you trying to say that these damages on your village were caused by a _mere_ battle of two people? What if it was a war?" yelled Chiyo.

"I don't think it's a mere battle anymore, but you're free to guess," replied Tsunade. She didn't have the courage to imagine what it would like if it was a war that was held.

Suddenly, Chiyo went to the door and opened it.

"Where are you going?" asked Tsunade before Chiyo managed to get out of the room.

"Find the person you were talking about. I want to dig the truth out of him or her!" replied Chiyo bitterly as she continued her steps.

Tsunade lifted her eyebrows, and then she forced herself not to laugh. "Too bad you don't know where or how he looks…" commented Tsunade mockingly before Chiyo managed to get out of hearing range.

Chiyo halted her steps. My god, how she hated the slug woman! Not only she was a pain in head/heart, she was ALWAYS right and better than her. She never liked the idea to come to Konoha and asked help from them, but who else they could depend on?

"Besides, you don't know the details about him. Why don't you sit and talk together?" asked Tsunade sweetly but in Chiyo's ears it was a bitter poison.

"Fine," grunted Chiyo as she came back and sit on a free chair. Actually the chair was already prepared for her (the sand nins refused to take the sit) but her pride stopped her from sitting on it. And now she regretted at why she didn't take it before. She never felt this tired before. Those monsters had made her used her best ability and four days non-stop journey was not helping.

Tsunade dropped her sweet expression. This was the time to be serious. "So where should I begin…"

.oOoOo.

Yatsuki watched the green surface of her tea as she played with her brown hair. She and her team were waiting for their Reikage at one of the Konoha's tea house. The brunette was outside of the tea house, admiring the night sky with her black eyes. Electricity (or so she thought) was down because of the ice stampede so the people were using traditional candles or oil lamps which made the place quite beautiful and home-like. Reigakure was a bit left behind in technologies, judging how isolated they were. They still used candles, oil lamps, and lampions as their source of light. She was a bit tacky when she saw the technologies in Konoha (we all question of HOW Konoha got video tapes, televisions, etc). But she managed to control it. She ignored the odd stares people gave her because of her attire. Shikifuku was something to be proud of. It was the symbol of the excellent Rei villagers especially if you were a team leader. She admitted that tea and snacks were the best when you were bored in waiting. It helped you relax and warm your body. The air was quite cold because of the ice and Yatsuki was sure that the tea maker made the tea by boiling the ices in a kettle. Not that she complained though. Water, ice, leaves, and another thing that was produced by spirits usually contains pure energy. It often heals too.

The brunette sipped her tea then continued to watch the stars. It was the first time she had seen stars and moon. It was her first time to see sky, clouds, sun, sunset, and night sky. It was her first time to inhale the air outside the village too. She sighed at the beauty of the full moon. She heard that the moon was unique. No stone or gems that could imitate its uniqueness and beauty, not even Reigakure's purest and biggest pearl. And it seemed that what those rumors said was true. She imagined how it would feel like if she fly as high as her shikigami could bring her and danced there. She smiled dreamily as she sipped her tea again.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Yatsuki choked on her tea when she heard the compliment. It wasn't the compliment that mad her shocked, it was the speaker. She coughed a couple times before she turned to the speaker. It was Rhaera. The Reikage was standing beside her. He was facing the sky as though he could see the stars. Why didn't she feel he come before? Oh well, he was the Reikage, the strongest in Reigakure. Then a fact struck her.

"Reikage-sama, how could you—" she stopped speaking when she realized that it wasn't the real form of her leader that was standing beside her. "The Shadow of Sun God, I see…"

"Enjoy it," said Rhaera as if Yatsuki hadn't said anything.

"What?"

"The stars… as long as you could see it…" said Rhaera.

"Oh," Yatsuki replied. They were silence for a moment before Rhaera suddenly spoke.

"Tell me, Yatsuki. Why do we, Spirit villagers, live under the dark sea?" asked the Reikage.

Yatsuki was confused by the Reikage's question, but answered automatically. "To hide ourselves from normal people."

Rhaera, instead of saying replies, asked another question. "And why do we have to hide?"

"Because normal people see us as monsters," the brunette fought the urge to flinch. That was what her teachers taught her. Spirit villagers must not have connection with normal people. Otherwise they would suffer.

"Then tell me," Rhaera continued. "What's your own opinion about that theory? Don't afraid to be honest."

Yatsuki gulped. "I agree, Reikage-sama."

"Do you really agree?" asked Rhaera coldly and unsurely.

Yatsuki tightened her grip on the tea mug. "Yes, Reikage-sama. I'm fully understood from what fact that theory made and why that theory must be applied to us…"

Rhaera asked another question. "Do you want to live here? Even you understand that?"

Yatsuki's tight grip made the tea mug crack. She decided to answer honestly. "Yes, I want." She wanted to be able to see the sky, sun, stars, clouds, moon, and many other things as often as possible.

Rhaera faced her for a moment then turned to face the sky again. "I'm sorry."

"Eh?"

"I'm sorry. I made all of you live under the dark and cold sea. Even I know you don't like it…" said the Reikage. Then he decided to change the topic. "Are there any words from the rebels?"

Yatsuki nodded. "Yes. It seemed that when they attacked the village of the Sand, they've kidnapped the one tail's host."

Yatsuki could swear that the Reikage had rolled his eyes behind the blindfold.

"Just wait when Konoha especially Suna heard this…" sighed Rhaera.

.oOoOo.

**Finished! Yay:) I hope you guys like it. Tell me what you think by hit the 'Go' button at the left below of the page!**

**The next scroll is:**

**Scroll 05: Sasuke's (Troublesome) Fiancée**

**Sasuke: "Who is this girl, Orochimaru?"**

**Orochimaru: "She's your fiancée."**

**Sasuke: "_Excuse me? _Why do _I_ have to have a fiancée?" **


	5. Scroll 05: Sasuke's Troublesome Fiancée

**Scroll 05: Sasuke's (Troublesome) Fiancée**

**WARNING:** THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS RIDICULOUS SCENE ABOUT OROCHIMARU AND SASUKE. DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. And there might be any yaoi or M rated scene. Don't say I don't warn you. But don't worry! This is not a yaoi or adult fic!

Miyabi was having a hard time walking. He was back to headquarter of the rebels, thanks to his not-so-friendly-friends. He was heavily injured, and all of that was Yatsuki's work. He was forcing himself to attend the scheduled meeting despite his injuries. He had been walking stumbling and slowly while his left hand clutched the injured part. His body was hurt, especially the right part of his belly. Yatsuki had managed to attack him with her fire arrows. He dodged it skillfully but he was too slow for an arrow shot attack. He was lucky that the arrow didn't get its way through his belly but the burning sensation at his right part of his belly was bitching enough.

_"That bitch Haguma… the next time I meet her, I'm going to make sure that her blood will stop flowing!"_ Miyabi was cursing Yatsuki mentally as he imagined how pleasing it was to have the brunette's blood freezing. He didn't notice that a girl was standing in front of him. He was too concentrated on his curses and how to walk without stumbling too many by gripping walls as support.

"Miyabi-sama…" said the girl in her feminine voice.

Miyabi halted his steps. He looked and saw one of his snow spirits; to be exact, his most beautiful and greatest snow spirit. What made her different from other snow woman was she was the snow-princess. Her face and looks were livelier. Her hair was silver and her eyes were pink. The hair also only reached her knees, not like other snow women that had their hair as long as their height. Her attire was more luxurious looking. She also looked younger.

"Get out of my way, Yukino. I have to attend the meeting and I don't want to be late," hissed Miyabi impatiently.

Yukino shook her head. She lifted her hands until they were parallel with her shoulder as a gesture that made clear that she wasn't going to let her master pass. "No, Miyabi-sama. You're not going too late because you aren't going to attend the meeting."

Miyabi gritted his teeth. Yukino was his best weapon. But she sometimes was overprotective. "Yukino, I don't have anytime to face you and your foolishness."

"It's not foolishness. It is care," corrected the snow-princess. She always wondered why her master was so stubborn like a child.

"Whatever," Miyabi grunted as he continued his steps. But Yukino wouldn't let him through.

"Yukino," Miyabi sighed impatiently and strictly. "Back away. This is an order." He knew that Yukino could be both of soft snow and stubborn ice. But that didn't stop him to own her.

"Is it wrong for a spirit to guard its master's health?" asked Yukino. Oh man, she really was a stubborn ice.

"Don't force me to seal you," threatened the master. But Yukino's guts weren't stirred.

Yukino put a determined expression on her face. "I don't mind as long as you are safe and healthy."

Miyabi was torn between the thought of he should be angry by the snow-princess' stubbornness or he should be grateful for the rare loyalties that was laid in her.

A dark and cold chuckle interrupted whatever Miyabi was going to say. Miyabi turned and found his never-endingly-annoying-ally. Kosomaru Futaba. HE was younger than him but HE was more arrogant than anything he ever met. Futaba has cat-like light green eyes and short black hair with some silver at his bangs. The hair was long enough to be tied into a small and low ponytail. Unlike Miyabi who was wearing a dark blue hakama (lower part of kimono or kimono's pants) light blue haori (upper part of kimono), he was wearing a dark green hakama and light green haori. And this guy was smirking with that annoying smirk of his.

"What's a matter, Miyabi-_senpai_? You can't control your own spirit? What a shame, I expect something better from you…" said Futaba with a clear mocking tone. Oh, how Miyabi hate him. Not only the black-haired boy was younger and arrogant, he also loves to mock at somebody's failure. And he was better than him too, according to their teacher's point of view. Miyabi knew that Futaba used "senpai" to mock his lower skill. Luckily it wasn't Futaba who helped him back then. It was the same as he would do a suicide if Futaba helped him then laughed at him. But in this case, Futaba was _a bit_ correct. Onmyouji was not an onmyouji if he couldn't control his spirits.

Miyabi thought hard for a reply. "As you know, I _love_ challenge. Unlike _you_, who choose easy to control spirit like those calm plant spirits," retorted Miyabi. He got the result he wanted. Futaba's eyebrows twitched with anger.

"Don't think because you are older than me then you could judge me as you please," replied Futaba as he tried to press his anger to minimum but failed when Miyabi sent his retort.

"I _am_ older than you," said Miyabi.

Futaba crossed his arms on his chest. "Only by a month."

"Yeah, though sensei (teacher) told me to watch over the _junior_," said Miyabi with a lot of pride in his tone.

"Well then, _who_ is the one who get hurt and refused _my_ medicine?" Futaba began to show his lose of calm.

"I'd rather die than consume an amateur's made medicine," grunted Miyabi. Inside, he was grinning triumphantly when Futaba's lips began to form a pout._ "Ha-ha! I got you now!"_

"No one could refuse my medicine. No one," hissed Futaba with anger. His eyes expressed anger. Miyabi swore he could see a fire lit in the green orbs.

"Well, I am a one," replied Miyabi with smirk. Oh yeah! He was getting the upper hands! Futaba was better than him in skill but no one could compete with his ice like calmness. Not to mention that Futaba was like a spoilt child with golden armor. In short, he was hot-headed.

Yukino looked at Miyabi and Futaba worriedly. When those two fight, nothing good would happen. Miyabi would use her and Futaba would use his spirit to fight each other. They would fight needlessly and at the end no one won with damages on both fighters and battlefield as the result. Besides, it wasn't herself she concerned but her master's well being. Miyabi was having a hard time to walk, let alone fight. Luckily, someone with more influence came and stopped the fight.

"Are you two here to fight each other or to attend the meeting?"

Miyabi and Futaba turned to find their respective teacher. She had short and wavy hair that had the color of light wood and pale blue colored eyes. Her eyes were sharp and small, but they fit perfectly with her sharp face and dark skin. Unlike Miyabi and Futaba who wore formal clothes, she wore a simple miko (woman priest) dress with brown colored undergarments. She also wore her honey colored string of beads that was long enough to circle her neck twice. It looked like there was a small chance she would attend the meeting, judging how casual her attire was.

"Rikuchi-sensei!" exclaimed Futaba in shock meanwhile Miyabi lost his tounge.

"It's Koetami. How many times I told you to not call me by my family name?" asked Koetami.

"But I prefer Rikuchi than Koetami. It sounds fit at my ears…" said Futaba innocently. It was a lame excuse but it was the truth.

"It looks like it's impossible for you to change that habit but its okay. By the way, I want to ask you two to attend the meeting for me. But it looks like that you can't do it, Miyabi. Go to the bed and rest now. I don't want you to be useless in this kind of time…" said Koetami.

Futaba smirked with triumph and Miyabi answered it by sending devil glares. He didn't dare to complain though.

"Fine. But let Yukino attend it for me. Why can't sensei attend the meeting?" asked Miyabi.

"That Blue Glow flower spirit makes havoc again," answered Koetami.

Miyabi commented, "Stubborn one doesn't him?"

"Yeah, like you," replied Futaba.

Miyabi devil glared to the green eyed boy once again but didn't dare to make cruel insults in front of his teacher. So he said, "Who was the one who suggest releasing the girl spirit then? Now she has become that Reikage's useful lapdog."

"And why do you stupidly agree?" replied Futaba smartly. Crap, the power of genius. But he had to be cunning to counter a genius.

"Because _you_ said that seniors should listen to the juniors once in a _rare_ time," said Miyabi with a cunning look.

But Futaba was not the type who gave in easily. "But seniors should be smart enough to not jump into careless decisions."

Of course, like Yukino, Miyabi was a stubborn ice. "I don't want to release her, but since you influenced others, finally Koetami-sensei ordered me to throw her away. And being a good student, I complied."

Futaba only had the chance to open his mouth before Koetami's soft and polite cough stepped in.

"I hope I'm not forgotten yet…" after the two students went silent, she glanced at Miyabi and continued, "I thought I told you to make her far from her brother not to throw her away."

Futaba smirked triumphantly and glanced to Miyabi, hoping that he would see Miyabi's lost and embarrassed expression. But he didn't see it. He saw the total opposite. Miyabi had a sure expression and a cocky grin on his face.

"Don't worry sensei. I've got plan B," said Miyabi proudly and grinning even wider when he saw Futaba's grim expression. His words made Koetami's brow arched. Yukino only stared worriedly at her master. Whenever someone grin a cocky grin and wore sure expression, something bad was bound to happen. Well, at least bad for the foes…

.oOoOo.

Sasuke was back from his training. It was more like traveling because he had gone for three days. Orochimaru would mind it unless he kept in touch and he mustn't go for more than three days. He walked into the underground quarter and stopped in front of Orochimaru's room. Well, this was the hardest part of all. Facing Orochimaru brought nothing but unpleasant feelings and mood. But he can't help it. It was his choice to follow him at the first place. There was no time to regret. He pushed the door open, and saw the usual condition of the room. It was dark with only a candle as the source of light. And there would be Orochimaru sitting on his bed or his usual chair. He was too awful to sit on a chair recently. There would be that oh-so-sinister Kabuto. He was said to be sinister because he always looked at Sasuke with a threatening look as if Sasuke had done a mistake or more. Well, he did do a mistake. He had made Orochimaru's full attention drawn to him. And he did nothing to do it. But as if he liked it. He opened the door and saw what he was expecting to see.

But today, he noticed, there was something that made the room different. Something that made the eyes of the young Uchiha squinted. There was a young girl, around his age to be exact. She has long dark gold hair that reached her knees. Her eyes were blue like sapphire and her skin was pale. Her features were gentle and innocent looking. But somehow, Sasuke knew that she hid more. She was wearing light blue colored kimono with aqua colored obi (kimono belt). She smiled to Sasuke warmly and innocently when the boy entered the room. But when she did it, Sasuke's hair on the back of his neck stood up. At this point, Sasuke went alert and tried to detect the girl's chakra with his sharingan. He found that the girl's chakra flow was normal and her power level was no more than a mere civilian. And there was no effort to hide her chakra too. Sasuke went confused but didn't drop his alert. Her features telling "harmless" but his under-conscious kept shouting "BEWARE".

Orochimaru caught this and smirked. So Sasuke also found what he found in that girl. Interesting. He waited Sasuke to speak first and he didn't have to wait long.

"Who's this girl Orochimaru?" asked Sasuke, trying to suppress any filth tone.

"She is your fiancée," said Orochimaru simply as if it didn't matter.

What Sasuke had heard was not the one he like or expect. "_Excuse me?_ Since when do _I_ have a _fiancée_?" he emphasized the 'I' and 'fiancée' words.

"Since I decided it," replied Orochimaru with an amusement smirk. He loved to see Sasuke's "tortured" expression.

"And WHY do I have to have fiancée?" HE definitely didn't like females (except his mother) let alone have one of them as fiancée.

"Let's ditch that matter for this moment, shall we? Firstly, you two should know each other. Sasuke, this is Fusume Ai. Ai, this is Uchiha Sasuke," said Orochimaru.

Ai smiled wider and walked towards Sasuke. "Nice to meet you, Sasuke-san," she said as she held her right hand to shake. No matter how a bastard Sasuke was, he still got politeness. Sasuke shook her hand and immediately drew his hand back after the shake. He was a bit surprised by her soft and smooth hand. He was never touched by that kind of hand beside his mother. Sakura and Ino's hands were not that smooth because the ninja practice they had. It was clear that this girl had never been doing something hard for so long. But put that aside now, Orochimaru HAD to explain.

"I'm sorry, miss—" he trailed.

"Ai. Ai is enough," she interrupted.

"Well, I'm sorry Miss Ai. Could you go out from this room for a moment? I have to discuss something with Orochimaru…" he thought for a moment before adding, "-san."

"Huh? But we just meet…" she said sadly like a child who has to separate with her mother.

"Don't worry. I'll see you later. Don't talk as there is no tomorrow," said Sasuke as softly as possible with his cold voice. He ended up sounded like Itachi back then when the older brother comforted him that they would do shuriken training tomorrow. Great, now he knew what Itachi thought about him back then.

Ai bent her head down in disappoint. "Fine. See you later or tomorrow then." She walked to the door but then stopped. "But where I supposed to go?" she asked to the three males.

Sasuke immediately sent Kabuto a scary glare. "You would accompany her. Right, Kabuto?" he asked in a very low voice that he was sure able to chase a Naruto away.

The glare sent a chill down to the silver-haired medical ninja's spine. But he hid it well. "Of course I will. Would you please follow me, Miss Ai?" asked Kabuto as he walked toward the door.

Ai nodded. "Yes. Thank you very much, Kabuto-san."

After the two of them gone, Sasuke waited the footsteps to be unheard and then fought the urge to yell. If there had been a table, he would have slammed his fist down to the table.

"When, where, and HOW did you find this girl AND why she's here?" asked Sasuke furiously.

Orochimaru smirked in amusement and evilly. "She walked in here by herself," replied the snake sennin.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "I don't think she's the type who would walk to the lion's den without reason…"

"So you think that our quarter is dangerous for someone like her?" asked the sennin with a false hurt tone.

"OH YES of course! Not only for her, but any other weak people! With those criminals you collected as your underlings and yourself!" Sasuke exploded. He usually very calm and controlled, but it seemed that the tiredness from three days training and the shock of having fiancée so suddenly took over.

The room went silent for a moment. Orochimaru was surprised to see another side of Sasuke. But he overcame it quickly.

"Why do you mind it? Her safety, I mean…" asked Orochimaru.

"I don't care with her safety! I just wonder why a harmless looking girl like her is here!" asked Sasuke impatiently.

"Well then if that's your question. Why don't you calm down and sit, Sasuke-kun?" asked Orochimaru as he pointed the free chair in front of his bed with his eyes. Sasuke grunted before sat down.

"Fine. Explain your self," grumbled the teen.

"Firstly, she was here because she lost. And she was very scared of the dark wood so being a gentleman…" at this part, Sasuke fought the urge to vomit right away. "I asked her to come in," finished Orochimaru.

"I'd rather being eaten by wolfs than enter _our_ quarter if I were her," grumbled Sasuke.

"But you are not her," said Orochimaru with a smirk. Actually, he didn't like to be joking but seeing the expression of an annoyed Uchiha was worth of his pride. Besides, it helped him to forget the bitching pain.

"That's what conditionals type 2 exists for!" shouted Sasuke furiously. Wait a minute. Why the subject changed into grammar? Oh man, he really was tired. He was getting ridiculous from second to second. Sasuke took a deep breath to calm him self. He found that it was pointless to argue with Orochimaru when he wasn't at his best condition.

"Well then, I'm leaving. But don't think this is over!" the teen said as he stood up and started to walk out.

"Leaving already?" asked Orochimaru. Sasuke stopped his steps. Was it just his feelings or Orochimaru did sound like that Fusume girl?

"Yes. Why? Do you mind it?" asked Sasuke roughly and rudely.

Orochimaru smirked wider. A little more push wouldn't hurt. "Too bad. I'm intending to make you to be my bed slave tonight."

SHUSH

A kunai flew toward Orochimaru's head and the sennin dodged by moved his head easily. The kunai flew through and embedded on the wall. Orochimaru's hair were moving because of the wind that caused by the kunai. He looked at the grim face of Sasuke.

"I'd rather sleep with Itachi than with you, sick rotten perverted snake freak!" screamed Sasuke so loudly until it echoed through the whole part of the quarter.

Orochimaru was surprised by the loud voice and could do nothing when Sasuke walked out of his chamber and yelling, "I'm leaving!" as he went out of the sight.

The snake sennin felt blood trickle from his cheek. The matter seemed not that he hadn't dodged the attack perfectly but Sasuke had been better. He smiled evilly and with satisfaction. Sasuke didn't fail him. Soon, that body with the advance blood of Uchiha would be his.

Meanwhile, Kabuto and Ai…

"Kabuto-san, did you hear what I just hear?" asked Ai.

"I'm afraid so, Miss Ai," said Kabuto as he adjusted his glasses.

"I never thought that cool guy like Sasuke-san could be that emotional and loud…" commented Ai.

"Nah, he's just tired from his training, Miss Ai," explained Kabuto. It seemed that Ai didn't hear what Sasuke screamed clearly. Well, it was better to leave it that way. Then Kabuto stopped walking. He opened the door beside him and showed the girl a plain room with a single bed, table, chair, no window (this was underground quarter), and a door to a closet. "Here is your room, Miss. If you need anything, just call me or Sasuke. I put your room right beside his so you could visit him any time."

Ai's face became delighted. "Thank you very much! You're so kind, Kabuto-san!"

"It's nothing," said Kabuto calmly. This girl was so innocent. She didn't realize that she was facing Konoha's greatest criminal.

"Then I shall wait for Sasuke inside my room. Good night, Kabuto-san," she said as she went into her room excitedly.

"Good night," replied Kabuto as he closed the door and locked it. Orochimaru had ordered him to do this. After a moment of walking, he heard the girl wailed, "Aww… there's no bathtub or warm water!"

He chuckled. How did the girl expect to find something like bathtub and warm water in a criminal's hideaway? Wait a minute; she even didn't aware that she was staying in a criminal's house and being mated to a stranger. Kabuto didn't know if he should feel sorry for the girl or not.

Sasuke stomped the floor loudly each time he stepped. And he was aware that each stomp made a concaved hole. He didn't care if he was being childish. He didn't care about the floor. All he cared was: going to bed as fast as possible and sleep as quick as he can so he could relax and forget his problem as immediately as his skill would allow. Not long, he reached his bedroom. He opened the door and quickly went to bed. He didn't bother to get shower because he was too tired. He simply stripped himself until only his white boxers and dark blue singlet. He lay on his bed and it didn't take long for him to fall into a dreamless sleep. Unknown by him, a pair of eyes were watching him…

.oOoOo.

Sasuke opened his eyes. Was it morning already? He looked to the small table beside his bed where his clock was. The short hand was pointing at four meanwhile the long one was pointing at three. A quarter past four. For average people, this was too early. But for Uchiha Sasuke, this was the right time to start his training. He sat up but he didn't immediately get out of his bed. He waited for a moment for his eyes to adjust the darkness and his mind to be more wake. His rubbed his eyes that were still half lidded. He looked down to the white blanket that covered his waist and feet. He didn't remember to wear his blanket. If his memory served him right, he remembered he simply lay on the bed nothing else.

He turned his head to his side to look for his weapons and clothes. He didn't remember where he put them. Damn morning syndrome, makes your brain work slowly. His eyes fell on the right side of the bed and saw a bundle under the blanket. Maybe he brought them with him to sleep. He uncovered the blanket but what he saw was neither his weapon nor clothes. It was a girl with long and dark gold hair. She only wore a too big white shirt that covered half of her thigh. She was sleeping peacefully, didn't aware that the too big neck of the shirt was showing too much her neck and shoulders. This position was too seductive for a teenage Uchiha to look. But apparently, Sasuke's brain was working slowly to digest the situation.

So the bundle wasn't his weapon or clothes. It was a girl. She seemed sleeping though. Why she was sleeping here? Do I know her? Then suddenly he was wide awake. All the logic turned on and the memory last night hit him like a tsunami wave.

"WAAAHH!" for the first time in years, Uchiha Sasuke screamed in surprise not in pain, anger, or frustration.

Sasuke backed off quickly, didn't aware that he was at the edge of the bed. The result was: he fell from his bed and because the short distance between the bed and the wall, the back of his head hit the wall and making a loud thumping noise. Luckily, from years of training his physic, his skull became strong enough to not crack because of this kind of thing. But still, it hurt.

"Ooww…" Sasuke growled.

"Ngghhh…" a groan came from the girl. Apparently, Sasuke's scream and the sound of the head met the wall had awaken her.

Sasuke looked down to see his own appearance. Crap, only boxers and a singlet. The girl would freak out if she saw him and herself in one room and minimum clothes. But why care about her while he himself already freaked out. He quickly got up and went to the other side of the room to grab his pants and wear it.

"Nghh… is it morning already?" asked the girl as she sat up, rubbed her eyes, and yawn. She was behaving naturally as there was nothing wrong.

Sasuke went towards her, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her hardly. "You! What are you doing here?"

Immediately, all the sleep traces gone from her. "Uhm… what's the matter, Sasuke-san?" asked Ai as if there had been nothing wrong.

"What's the matter?" wailed Sasuke in frustration. "How did you enter my room?" asked Sasuke. How could he didn't notice her when he had been sleeping? He really was tired.

"By the door. It wasn't locked," answered Ai innocently.

Sasuke slapped his forehead. How could he have been so foolish? Didn't lock the door and didn't notice her presence? If Itachi had came and said he was a foolish little brother, he would have gladly accept it. "And why did you enter my room?"

"You said you would meet me after you finished your talk with Orochimaru-san. But when I went to your room, you had slept so I decided to wait for you…" answered Ai with a confused tone. She was confused of why Sasuke got so angry to her.

"But WHY did you have to sleep in my room?"

"Because I'm afraid," answered Ai simply.

"What?" Sasuke asked unbelievably.

"I'm afraid to sleep alone…" Ai said as her face went as red as his sharingan.

Sasuke was dumfounded. Just how old was she?

"Then you used to sleep with your sister?" asked Sasuke.

"No. My older brother would sleep with me. Besides, we're fiancés now, right?"

Geez. No wonder she didn't mind to sleep beside Sasuke. She thought that all male were like her brother and he was her fiancé so it would be okay. How could she survive in this full of pervert world?

"By the way, why do you wear that?" asked Sasuke, pointing to the too big shirt. If he were a girl, he would rather sleep with dirty kimono.

"Oh. There was only this shirt in the wardrobe. There was no bathrobe or whatsoever. This hotel's service is bad, isn't it?" asked Ai.

Sasuke fought the urge to bang his head to the wall. She had been thinking that this criminals' hideaway as a hotel. What Orochimaru had told to her? Wait until _someone_ heard this. He'd have to kill somebody.

"Well then. Go back to your room, its morning already and you have to change your attire," ordered Sasuke and Ai complied. She walked to the door but stopped when she opened it.

"Sasuke-san?" asked Ai.

"What now?" asked Sasuke, trying not to be harsh but failed.

Ai pointed her index finger to the dark hallway, her expression told fear. "It's dark."

At that morning, Orochimaru, Kabuto, and others were waked up by someone's frustrated scream.

"OROCHIMARU! What did you tell her about this quarter? A hotel?" shouted Sasuke when he got the chance to enter the snake sennin's room.

Orochimaru was surprised to see Sasuke's frustrated self again. But he regained his composure. "Calm down, Sasuke-kun. What do you mean?"

"WHAT DO I MEAN? That girl is thinking that this quarter is a hotel! The last thing I want is an advertisement for this _hotel_!" yelled Sasuke impatiently as he grabbed Orochimaru's collar. He didn't care if he was being ridiculous.

Orochimaru gave a confused look then shook his head. "I didn't tell her anything beside: if you agree to be my child's fiancée, I'll give you a place to stay."

"Since WHEN I am your child?" asked Sasuke furiously.

"Come on, Sasuke. It's just a part of the act," said Orochimaru as he grinning wickedly.

"Orochimaru, I came here not to learn how to be an actor…" hissed the teen.

"Sasuke, this is a part of the training. If you want to spy on something or someone, you should have good acting skill," said Orochimaru with a teacher like tone.

"What kind of lame excuse is that?" asked Sasuke to no one. But in heart he admitted that Orochimaru was right.

"Or do you hate her, Sasuke-kun? Would you want to marry _me_ instead?" asked Orochimaru with a sick smile.

What came next was beyond his expectation. Sasuke punched his right cheek very hard. Then the teen released the grip and walked out of the room while shouting: "I'm straight, you sick bastard!"

Sasuke met Kabuto when he walked back to his room to prepare himself for another looooonggg term training. And he would make sure that he would come back as late as possible. _"God, I should aim the kunai to his manhood last night,"_ grumbled Sasuke mentally. Apparently, his grim face caught Kabuto's attention.

"Sasuke-kun, what's the matter?" asked Kabuto.

"Ask that person," hissed Sasuke, hoping the medical ninja would catch who and what he meant. "If there's nothing to be talked about, I'm going to leave." With that, Sasuke started to walk again. But Kabuto's next words stopped him.

"Would you like to hear interesting information?" asked Kabuto. It was pointless to do this, but he would like to see Sasuke's reaction when the boy heard this.

"What is it?" asked Sasuke. Heh, he was getting the hoped reaction from Sasuke.

"Do you know that Konoha is rubbles now?" asked Kabuto. His glasses glistened, hiding his expression.

"What?" asked Sasuke. Did he hear what he thought he heard? Konoha was rubbles? That was… impossible. Sasuke knew how strong the village was. And there was no rumors containing there would be a war between Konoha and whoever the foe.

Kabuto's lips curled into a slight smirk. "But pity the villagers aren't pieces too…"

Sasuke went towards Kabuto and grabbed his collar. "What do you mean? Spill it out!"

"There's no need to be impatience, Sasuke-kun. Now, would you please release me so I can tell the story to you?" asked Kabuto. Sasuke released him.

Kabuto adjusted his clothes. "To begin with, they got ice stampede."

"What do that mean?" asked Sasuke.

"You know, blocks of ice fell from the sky…" explained Kabuto.

Sasuke shook his head. "It's not that. I mean, why did ices fall on Konoha? We all know that Konoha locates in a tropical climate. Snow is impossible, let alone ice."

"It may be weather antics as many people believe, but I heard rumors," said Kabuto. They were getting into the interesting part.

Sasuke lifted his eyebrows. "Rumors?"

"There have been rumors saying that the event was caused by somebody."

"Are you kidding?" Sasuke's face would look so weird if he lacked of self control.

Kabuto adjusted his glasses. "Unbelievable, isn't it? But if it is true, then…"

"Orochimaru will be interested making friend with him or her…" mumbled Sasuke.

Kabuto smirked. There might be a chance that Sasuke would be as interested as Orochimaru. He himself was anxious to find out if the rumor was true. Figuring that there was nothing to be heard anymore, Sasuke walked away. Kabuto soon followed Sasuke's moves and walked away to another direction. Unknown by them, there was someone who had been watching them. After they were gone, the eavesdropper stepped out from its hiding place and smirked with amusement.

.oOoOo.

Kozueran sipped her tea. She was talking to a red haired boy in a beautiful garden. "Hayame, did you finish the preparation?"

Kinjiya Hayame, the wealthy boy, smiled with apologizes. "I'm sorry, Kozueran-sama. It seems it will take longer…"

"And why is that?" asked Kozueran with piercing black eyes.

"The fuel. It's starting to be harder and harder to find it in a massive amount without anybody poking a nose to our business. Well, it's not something they see everyday. And I have some problem with camouflage. Some people have been suspicious with the carriers…" explained Hayame.

"How long it'll take?" asked Kozueran as she watched white rabbits ran across the garden.

"If I'm lucky, it's going to take one month. But if I'm not, wait until two or three months later," said Hayame.

"One until three months of wait, eh? I'd like to go faster; I don't want to be involved with the current events anymore than this. It's enough that Konoha, Suna, and Rei have their current events…" Kozueran said as she toyed with the cup of tea.

"You don't want to help _him_?" Hayame asked carefully. He knew that she was sensitive in this case.

Kozueran shook her head. "No. He has his own business to do, so am I. Besides, we have promised not to meet each other again…"

"But…" Hayame sighed. "I would like to go, even for once."

"Where?" asked Kozueran, even she already knew what the answer was.

Hayame faced Kozueran and smiled. "To my said homeland, that is…"

"You know you can't. Even you have begged personally to me," said Kozueran as she glared to Hayame sharply.

Hayame sighed in defeat. "Yeah, I know. I have my own duty here, haven't I?" he silenced for a moment then he continued. "But still, I want to see what it looks like. The dreamland for the astronomers…"

Kozueran couldn't help but stare at Hayame with disapproval.

"Believe me. You'll love your position more."

.oOoOo.

**I know this is short. But I can't help it. I'm still on my school exam days and it's a true pain to write this. I hope you like it.**

**Next: it seems that Konoha has its first experience of somebody being haunted. And that somebody is Kiba. Being released from the emergency hospital, Kiba finds that his house isn't the same he knows anymore. **

**Scroll 06: Ghost Haunted Kiba**


	6. Scroll 06: Ghost Haunted Kiba

**Scroll 06: Ghost Haunted Kiba**

Kiba was humming happily. Finally, he was released from the emergency hospital with note that he shouldn't do anything that prevented his arm from completely healed. That was including training, lifting heavy weights, and blah-blah-de-blah. But he was glad and thankful that he was finally released from that emergency hospital. Not that he hated being healed, but the smell of medicines was too much for Akamaru's keen nose (the dog was very loyal to Kiba until it denied Kiba's sister request to have her took care of the dog and he patiently bear the 'torture'). And the food was horrible. The same menu over and over again like there was no other food.

Finally, he arrived at his home. He was disappointed when he found it deserted and a note at the kitchen that told his family had done the reparations in their home and went to help other people or did missions.

"Kuun…" Akamaru wailed, sensing his master's disappointment.

Kiba sighed, "Yeah, I know Akamaru. No delicious dinner tonight… for you and me…" then he grinned. "But… we can buy it! We're the lords in this home for now! MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!" Kiba laughed proudly and loudly with his hand on his hip while Akamaru imitated his master with his dog laughing-style (he also imitated the hand-on-the-hip gesture). He quickly took the money that had been prepared for him beside the note and ran off to buy some delicious food and dog food.

The house went silent again. Only sounds of crickets filled the night air. At the large dog house, the place where all dogs sleeps, dogs of Inuzuka family were sleeping peacefully. But that peaceful situation didn't remain long. One of the dogs' ears moved slightly as it caught some noises. The owner's eyes opened and the dog immediately got up, followed by other dogs. They growled fiercely to the door but their tails were between their legs, indicating they felt something evil and powerful.

Suddenly, the door was opened harshly by strong wind. The wind was so strong until the strong dogs of Inuzuka family had to claw to the floor so they wouldn't be blown. But the strong wind made them pushed back some meters. Not long, the wind stopped and a black figure appeared. The dogs lunged to attack the figure but they were stopped by an unseen force. The same force threw them until they hit the ground or wall hardly. The dogs desperately tried to stand up but the looming figure's shadow already fell on them.

That night, the wailing sounds of pained and scared dogs went unheard by anybody…

"Wow, this day is my best day! No— it's our best day! Right, Akamaru?" asked Kiba as he walked himself home. Akamaru responded by a happy 'woof'. The dog was so happy until it decided to walk with his own legs instead sticking on Kiba's head or cuddling behind the master's jacket. They had filled their hungry stomach with a big amount of (far more decent than hospital's) foods. This day was going to be perfect if his left arm wasn't injured.

Kiba sang one of his favorite songs as he walked home. He continued to sing when he reached the front gate of his mansion-like house (Inuzukas need its size for their dogs). His house was the third biggest in Konoha, mainly because the first and second were taken by Uchihas' and Hyuugas'. Not that he complained, though. Because sooner or later, the house would grow bigger as their dogs number increased.

The dog-smelled ninja entered his house but stopped his steps when he realized that Akamaru wasn't following him. He turned and found that Akamaru was cuddling and shivering on the road. Kiba's eyebrows rose wonderingly. He walked to Akamaru and picked the dog up.

"What's up Akamaru? Why do you scared?" asked Kiba. He didn't sense something wrong around his house or at least someone. "Or your belly is aching?" he changed the question. Maybe the dog had eaten too much. But Akamaru just whimpered. This confused Kiba more. But standing in front of his house wasn't going to make any change.

"C'mon, let's go in and sleep. Maybe you're too tired…" said Kiba as he hugged Akamaru and walked into the house.

After washed his face and brushed his teeth (which he did it with difficulty because only one hand he could use), Kiba went into his room and prepared to go to bed. He tried to change his clothes but give up when it came to the upper part so he only changed his pants. He'd ask his sister to help him change tomorrow. He lay on his bed and pulled the cover over his body and Akamaru. The dog was still shivering for an unknown reason. He decided to comfort the dog by patted it on its head. Akamaru calmed down a little, but his expression told Kiba that the dog wasn't calmed down completely.

"Don't worry, Akamaru. There's nothing wrong," said Kiba. But his words gave no effect. "Let's sleep so you'll calm down. Good night," said Kiba as he closed his eyes. But after a moment he opened them again. As expected, he couldn't sleep peacefully when his dog couldn't. Something average people called: bonds between the master and the pet.

"Fine. Let's walk around so you'll calm down, okay?" asked Kiba as he got up and carefully picked his dog up and placed it upon his head.

Kiba walked to the kitchen and search for some juice or at least milk. He opened the refrigerator (I always wondered how could they have electricity let alone refrigerator) and scanned its contents. Luckily there were some cartons of milk in the refrigerator.

"Kuun…" Akamaru wailed again. This time fright was evident in his voice.

"What now?" asked Kiba. Then he noticed that some of his family's dogs were circling him. "Why do you frightened, Akamaru? They're our friends, see?" said Kiba as he looked to one of the dogs.

"Or not…" he added.

The dog's eyes seemed to glow red. The eyes stared him with a dangerous look. The surrounding dogs had the same look and they didn't growl fiercely but Kiba knew better. Their tails were standing up, indicating that they were ready to strike any time.

Kiba gulped. Now he knew what thing that had been causing Akamaru scared. Suddenly, one of the dogs lunged at him. Kiba reflexively threw the carton of milk to the dog and it hit the dog's face hard, made it landed on the hard ground harshly.

"Woopss… sorry," said Kiba. Evil or not, they were still his family's dog.

Seeing one of their friends being injured, other dogs growled fiercely and lunged at Kiba at once. Kiba didn't want to hurt more dogs (don't blame him, he was a dog lover) so jumped to the ceiling and used his chakra to stick on it. The result of his action was the dogs bumped to each other and fell. Realizing that it was no longer safe in the kitchen, Kiba release his chakra hold and landed on the ground. He immediately went out of the kitchen, only to find that he was targeted by another dog. This time, it was alone and immediately lunged at Kiba. But once again, Kiba was faster. The dog hit the hard wooden wall behind Kiba, making a loud and unpleasant cracking noise. One of its bones must be broken. But as usual in shinobi world, whenever a shinobi human or animal was hit or fell on something, it wasn't their bones which cracked but the thing they hit that was cracked.

Kiba quickly ran away. If the dogs were targeting him, then he had to get out from his house as soon as possible. Besides Inuzukas was ninjas, another reason why thieves never dared to do their job in the Inuzuka house was their guarding dogs were the best. Not to mention how many dogs they got. And his fear was proved to be right. When he was out from the building many dogs came out from many direction —so many dogs that chased him until he wasn't sure anymore if his family had this great amount dogs.

Realizing that it was dangerous if he had made himself being surrounded, Kiba ran as fast as his feet would allow. But it was a little bit hard since his running style was similar to dogs and one of his arms had been broken. He didn't bother to search the exit. He used his chakra to jump over the concrete fence and ran again. He looked back without stopping, hoping that the dogs didn't chase him anymore. But he knew it was a false hope. The dogs kept chasing him, but they didn't jump over the wall. They _broke through_ the wall.

Kiba stared with wide eyes then fastening his pace. He knew that his family's dogs were strong but not _that_ strong without soldier pill. And his family never kept soldier pill in the easy to reach part of the house. But with soldier pill or not, the thing that matter now was the dogs were looked like a bunch of mad bulls that was more than capable to stomp him to dead.

Kiba was too distracted by the dogs until he didn't realize that he was running towards the crowded part of the village. He realized it when he heard screams from other villagers. He cursed his stupidity when he saw some of the villagers were attacked by the dogs and not a small amount of already damaged things that were damaged again.

"Kiba!" a familiar voice called him. Kiba turned his head up and saw that his teacher Kurenai was following him by jumping from half repaired roof to another. She jumped down and ran beside Kiba to gain easier conversation.

"What's the matter with those dogs? They're your family's dogs, right?" asked Kurenai.

"I don't know what's happening either, sensei! All I know is when I went to my kitchen to get some milk, they attacked me!" shouted Kiba. Actually, he didn't have to shout. But his panic made him like that.

"Are you sure that those dogs are free from rabies?" asked Kurenai doubtfully.

"Why the hell did you ask that? Of course they are! They are the best dogs that anyone could dream of! Even if they truly got _that_," — Kiba shuddered at the word — "—disease my family would notice!" his panic quickly turned into a momentary anger. The ninja dogs of Inuzukas were the best dogs in stamina and health. Did his sensei just think that the title of best dogs was just a decoration?

Suddenly he got an idea.

"Kurenai-sensei, could you use genjutsu to the dogs?" asked Kiba.

"Eh? I'm not sure. I never use genjutsu to animal…" answered Kurenai.

"Please, sensei! I beg you! Before other shinobi attack them to stop this whole thing!" Kiba pleaded.

Kurenai thought a moment before agreed. "All right, but I won't guarantee that this would work…"

The female jounin stopped her steps and turned. She performed some hand seals and soon, Kiba could notice that the genjutsu was working on its way. The dogs stopped running and their eyes were blank.

"Did we do it?" asked Kiba unsurely.

Kurenai didn't have the time to answer. The blank eyes of the dogs glowed red again but this time, those eyes glowed brighter and redder. Suddenly, Kurenai felt that her feet weren't touching the ground and she realized that an unknown force made her body floated. She didn't have the chance to even thinking because the same force threw her to the nearest wall. The wall cracked so did the jounin's body. Kurenai felt sharp pain on her back and fell unconscious.

"Kurenai-sensei!" shouted Kiba worriedly. He saw blood trickled from her mouth. But he didn't have the time to run to his teacher's side and help her. At least the dogs weren't going to attack her anymore. He had to stay alert or he would end up like his teacher. If the dogs were capable to knock the light out from a jounin then they bound to be able to rampaged the village. But what should he do? The dogs that were going mad in front of him were the same dog that his family owned and he loved. Besides, even if he didn't love them, how to stop them was the biggest question. They could knock down a jounin with a strange telekinetic-like force (that was similar to the ones he saw at movies) and he was chuunin. And he was aided only by Akamaru not to mention that he had a broken arm. Surely that other shinobi would come but no one could guarantee that the dogs wouldn't hurt the non-ninjas villagers.

But being a sitting duck wouldn't change anything. He decided to take the risk of hurting the dogs. Kiba gritted his teeth. _"I'm sorry!"_ he apologized mentally before lunged forward with a battle cry, aiming to one of the dogs. Because of the sudden movement the targeted dog was surprised and got a painful punch at the jaw. The punched dog was thrown to the air then fell to the ground. Seeing this, his allies attacked Kiba by using the same force that knocked Kurenai down. Kiba, by instinct, jumped so he was out from the dogs' sight range. Surprisingly, the attack made the rubbles nearby thrown.

Kiba's (slightly) smarter than Naruto's mind figured the weakness of the attack. The dogs could use their power to throw something or somebody but their target must be within their sight range. With this information, maybe he could win…

At the other place, Shizune was checking Naruto's condition. The boy's heartbeat was steady and everything was all right. Well, physically at least. The black haired medic noticed the grim expression of the boy. He was sleeping, but not peacefully. Maybe he was having nightmares. And unknown by her, that her expectation was true…

_'Where am I?' Naruto mentally asked himself. He couldn't see anything but black. He wasn't sure if he was standing or floating. His senses seemed to turn themselves off. Hell, he wasn't even sure that he was dreaming or not! But the darkness didn't remain long. Suddenly, Naruto could see glowing lights that were floating around. The lights were glowing beautifully like fireflies. But they were bigger than fireflies. Naruto touched one of them and suddenly, his surroundings changed. He immediately recognized that this was his ninja school entrance. Near entrance, people crowded. Each of the people was companied by his/her son, daughter, mother, or father. The children's faces were happy looking. Some of them were grinning proudly as their hands touching the new looking forehead protector. Naruto immediately recognized this situation as the ninja academy genin graduation. And he noticed that the kids age were around his age when he failed the first graduation._

_He looked at those people. They seemed so happy and lively. Of course who wouldn't when one of their family members was graduated from the ninja academy? But Naruto noticed something. Something he didn't and would never have: a father that would pat his child's head proudly and a mother who would kiss her child's forehead lovingly or a sibling that would tease his/her brother/sister. The blonde always find his heart aching when he saw a family was laughing together. The thoughts like 'they are so lucky' emerged from his mind every time he saw a parent hugged his/her child. And he always wondered why there wasn't anybody that will approach him or noticed him. _

_But now he was immune from those feelings. He tended to ignore them and focused himself to other things like making troubles or else. He didn't need parents. A troublemaker like him would only receive scold or worse, abuse — anything but love from his parents. And if people ignored him, he would make them know that he wasn't something that could be easily ignored like motionless gravel. _

_He didn't need parents._

_He didn't need siblings._

_But he carved for love…_

_Naruto snickered pitifully to himself. How funny, the envy feelings made him hate to have parents or siblings but at the same time made he carved for more attention._

_Envy…_

_Since when he knew those feelings called envy?_

_As his mind wondered, his blue eyes caught something yellow. He walked towards the thing and gasped._

_It was himself, his young self. The boy was sitting on the swing under the shade of trees, away from others. It had become his favorite spot in academy because when he played the swing, all of his negative feelings seemed to be washed away by the wind. The protection from the sun that the big tree offer made his gloomy heart went cheerful again. He went towards the boy and touched him, only to find that his hand went through the boy and the boy looked as if there was no one that touched him._

_Naruto was confused. Why he could see his young self now? And why couldn't he touch him? Then he figured that he was dreaming and the dream was previewing the memory he had buried in the deepest part of his heart. Before he could think another thing, the whole surrounding seemed to crack and break into pieces like glass. The sharp pieces fell to the ground and sank into it like the said ground was water. Once again, he found himself in the darkness, companied by the lights of his memory…_

.oOoOo.

Haguma Yatsuki, the onmyouji from the Suzaku legion was sleeping when she sensed something. She immediately opened her eyes and got up. She looked around and found her female teammates that shared the same room with her were awake too. They were the same serious expression like her. The two females and Yatsuki nodded together in agreement and understand. They immediately changed their night attires to their shikifuku. When they went out of their room, they saw their male teammates were ready like them. And they wasted no time to get their selves to the source of the power by jumping from roof to roof.

When they arrived they saw many dogs and one (crazy, idiot, and daredevil) boy were fighting at each other. Of course the boy was outnumbered. But there was no time to waste. Yatsuki threw a paper charm to a dog exactly before its claws and fangs could reach the boy.

Kiba was fighting desperately. But being outnumbered and having a broken arm was no fair battle for him. Besides, where did those dogs find that kind of strength? He jumped to dodge a tackle attack, but only to find that he was in helpless position against another one. He was fast enough to turn his head but he was sure that his reflexes weren't going enough to dodge a fierce dog that was ready to tear him up with its fangs and claws behind him. But to his surprise, a piece of paper managed to fly itself to the dog's head and made the dog yowled in pain and fell to the hard ground. From the dog's body, came a faint smoke and hissing sound as if the dog was a piece of hot steel that had been inserted to a bucket of cold water.

The young shinobi turned his head to the direction where the paper came from. He found a group of five people clad in strange clothes. The dogs turned their attention to the newcomers and growled more fiercely then ever. It seemed that they had met their nightmares.

Yatsuki frowned. There were so many dogs that were possessed, too many for her to detect the source. They had to split to find the source.

"Yatsuki-senpai," called one of her male teammates. Yatsuki turned as she heard he said, "That dog…"

Yatsuki followed his gaze and found the dog that she had attacked stood up. Its black eyes glow red again and the paper charm that stuck on its head suddenly destroyed. She gritted her teeth at this sight. It looked like it was going to take more than just busting ghost or spirit.

"Let's split up and find the source," ordered Yatsuki.

After the words from their leader the team split up. Yatsuki threw so many paper charms to the dogs until it looks like a rain of paper. And all of them managed to stick on the enemies. But her assault didn't stop there. She pulled a string of beads, circled it around her wrists and palms, and began to chant some strange and foreign words as her palms started to form strange hand seals. The dogs howled in pain and some faint black smokes started to appear from the dogs' body. But before Yatsuki could finish her chant, three dogs came behind her, tackled her to the ground, and pinned her there. She was sure that her head was going to be bitten off when Kiba tackled the dogs and freed her.

"Are you okay?" asked Kiba as he punched another dog that lunged to him.

"Yes, sort of…" answered Yatsuki. She was surprised by the strong physical power of the boy. Normally, people in Reigakure are strong mentally and spiritually but rather weak physically. They were at least strong enough to jump to a very high place and fight a long battle but they couldn't do what even the weakest genin could do such as the ability to destroy a hard rock with empty hand.

Kiba examined the girl in front of him. She was older than him, maybe she was at her seventeen or eighteen. But what made him wonder what she was, was her attires. He had never seen such strange clothes. He was too deep in his thought until he didn't realize that he had been spacing out.

"Look out!" the girl shouted a warning to him. Kiba turned around just in time to punch another dog. But he didn't have the time to escape another wave of dogs that jumped to him.

"On abokya beiroshanam!" he heard the girl shouting the strange world quickly behind him and suddenly the dogs thrown back as if there was an invisible wall in front of him. Sure enough, he could see a faint white layer when the dog hit the… barrier.

This is bad… thought Yatsuki. There were to many dogs for them to handle. It was a bit better if those dogs weren't strong ninja dogs but the fact couldn't be changed. Usually, at this kind of case, Yatsuki and her teammates would create a big onmyoujitsu spell formation and banished the evil spirit from the subjects in the same time by inserting their power into the spell formation. But Yatsuki found out that the dogs' power were equal at each other. Their power will increase when a paper charm stuck on their bodies. That meant the spirits that possessed the dogs actually was just one spirit. It would send the dogs more power when the evil spell, power, or charm was going to be banished from them. And not to mention that even if the spell, power, or charm was successfully banished, the said things would possess them once more. She had to find the source, but where? Then she noticed the boy that had helped her. Well, asking wouldn't hurt.

"Hey, you!" Kiba could hear the girl called him or somebody else.

"Did you call me?" asked Kiba.

"Yes, I'm calling you! Do you know where these dogs came from?" asked the girl.

Kiba lifted his eyebrows. "Yes, but why did you ask?"

"Just answer me! I'll explain later!" she answered as he noticed that some dogs hit the almost invisible barrier again.

"They came from my house," said Kiba. He noticed the girl jaw-dropped. Maybe she didn't know about his family and was shocked by the number of the dogs that unmistakably theirs. But she quickly recovered from her surprise.

"Show me the way please!" she asked him.

Kiba was more confused now. Why would she want him to show the way to his house when there were dogs that rampaging madly here? "But the dogs…"

"Don't worry! My friends will hold them just fine!" she paused a moment before added, "…if we are fast enough…"

"All right, I'll show you. But could you run as fast as me miss—" Kiba trailed.

"Yatsuki. Haguma Yatsuki," she answered shortly.

"I'm Inuzuka Kiba. Could you run as fast as me Miss Haguma?" asked Kiba. He assumed that she was weaker physically because her reflexes were slower than him and because of that she couldn't dodge the dogs.

"I don't know how fast you are, Inuzuka-san…" Yatsuki pointed. "Besides, who said I will run?" asked her as she grinned rather playfully.

Kiba blinked. "Eh?" he managed to blurt that word out before the girl did another weird thing.

She pulled a stack of red paper charms from nowhere as she shouted other strange words, "Shuku-Dou-Shou!" After shouting that, the red papers glowed and shot up to the sky, forming a mystical light red colored bird. Kiba gawked. He had never seen such a beautiful creature before. Its feathers were elegant and soft looking. Red colored light glowed from the body, making it looked like a giant bird shaped neon lamp. Its size matched with Jiraiya's average sized toad (NOT the size of Gamakichi or Gamatatsu of course), enough for a person to ride on it. Its eyes were ruby red and its crest… well if it could be said as crest— was made of fire. But strangely, he could feel warm and comforting energy from it. The energy was very comforting until Akamaru, who had been hiding in his jacket, stop shivering.

"This is my shikigami, Hitakuri. She's a fire bird," she explained when she noticed the gawking expression of Kiba. Kiba nearly didn't hear her. He was too busy admiring the mystical animal. "Do you want to try to ride it?" asked Yatsuki. This caught his attention. He had never flied. But did this bird was faster than him? The bird flapped its wings and Kiba knew that his answer was yes. When would he get another chance to fly? Certainly it was not soon...

.oOoOo.

"I _thought_ you say I could ride it, not being _carried_ by it…" grumbled Kiba with much disappoint in his tone. True what he said. The fire bird carried him by holding his shoulders with its legs. Though he wasn't been hurt by the grip, he was still afraid of its talons. They looked menacing enough to swear death for those who hurt its master. And Kiba didn't want to be one of its victims.

"Don't protest. I only asked if you want to ride it, not ride **on** it. Besides, the space is too small for both of us," said Yatsuki.

Kiba snorted. "Why don't you just admit that you want to claim the free space for your own selfish self?" asked Kiba harshly.

:Shut up you ungrateful human or I'll release my grip. It's not mistress's fault that my body is small.: said a new womanly voice.

"W-what? Who's talking?" asked Kiba with stuttered voice because of surprise. Who else could have been there? Kiba saw nobody besides Yatsuki, the shikigami bird, and him.

:It's me, Hitakuri.: said the voice. And Kiba noticed that the voice came from above him. And he suddenly realized who had been talking harshly to him. The shikigami bird.

"It talks!" exclaimed Kiba in surprise, awe, or annoy, he him self didn't know either.

:Of course I can talk. Do you think learning the human language is much too difficult for us shikigamis: asked Hitakuri coldly and annoyingly.

"I never said that. It's just talking animal isn't a sight that we see everyday…" grumbled Kiba. This bird was starting to get annoying. Lucky he loved dogs. But what he said was true. He heard that summoned animals like dogs, toad, or snake or whatever (for example: Pakkun, Gamabunta, Manda) could talk. But Yatsuki said this Hitakuri is a shikigami. Maybe it was a different version of name from the summoned animals?

:You wouldn't say that because _you think_. Why do people attend to ignore each word of a question: asked Hitakuri much to herself.

"Isn't it just your very-careful-nature?" Kiba shot back. How he loved dogs more. At least they're kind enough to bark or bite, not attacking him with sharp words like Shino. He wasn't the type that battle with words.

"Would you two shut up? I have enough headaches from the dogs barking…" said Yatsuki as she rubbed her temple.

"Yes, I would mistress," replied Hitakuri formally when Kiba grumbled a 'fine'. Kiba noticed that Hitakuri did the formal speech only to its mistress.

"So Inuzuka-san, is that your house?" Yatsuki asked as she pointed her finger to a large mansion-like house. Though she didn't aware that Kiba had a hard time to see her finger because Hitakuri's body on the way.

"If you're pointing at a large mansion-like house, yes it is. By the way, Kiba is enough…" said Kiba. He just wasn't used to be called by his family name.

:Yeah, an ungrateful human like you don't deserve that kind of respect from my mistress.: said Hitakuri.

"Would you shut your foul mouth up?" Kiba restrained himself from shouting. He was a chuunin, he would survive from this kind of height but it would be helluva (hell-of-a) pain.

:I'm sorry, I can't — because I don't have a mouth. I have a beak.: replied Hitakuri smartly.

"WHAT'S the difference!" shouted Kiba, losing his nerves.

Yatsuki interrupted before Hitakuri could say anything. "Hitakuri, you're not permitted to speak unless I allow it. Do you understand?" asked Yatsuki.

"Yes, mistress…" replied Hitakuri with disappointment. Kiba restrained himself from smirking in glee but failed. It was fortunate that Hitakuri couldn't see his face at this position.

Hitakuri descended when they were near to the destination. When it reached around fifteen meters height, it suddenly released its grip and Kiba fell. Of course the said boy was surprised but his ninja reflexes allow him to land gracefully and unscratched. He turned to glare at Hitakuri who landed some meters away from him and he found that Hitakuri was staring at him with an 'innocent' wondering expression.

"What are you expecting? Me, fell ungracefully? In your dreams!" yelled Kiba proudly when he realized what was the meaning of the bird's act and expression. This time, Hitakuri didn't retort back and Kiba knew he had won.

Yatsuki mounted off Hitakuri. "All right you two, stop trying to kill each other because we're going to face more complicated things," said Yatsuki.

"Like what?" asked Kiba.

"That," Yatsuki said as she pointed a club of dogs. Kiba's stomach flip-flopped when he saw them. This time they were no mere dogs. They were puppies. Back then, the dogs were big dogs that clearly stating that they were adults and they were trained and strong enough to take his punch and kick — but THIS? He'd rather die than hurting those innocent puppies.

:What's the matter? Don't tell me that you're afraid of them…: asked Hitakuri with sarcasm. But Kiba ignored it for now.

"For crying out loud, I'm afraid of hurting them!" shouted Kiba.

"What?" asked Yatsuki.

"Can't you tell by seeing? I'm a dog lover!" cried Kiba.

:No, we can't.:

"After saw you fighting madly back then, no, I can't," replied Yatsuki.

_"Am I really that… fierce?"_ asked Kiba to himself mentally.

:Miss, I think the spirit's power doesn't possess them completely…: pointed Hitakuri.

"You're right. I think because puppies are still pure…" then she perked up, "Hey! If the power doesn't possess them completely, then..!"

"Then what?" asked Kiba.

Several moments later…

The puppies tried to bark fiercely by their cute voice but failed. Kiba looked at Yatsuki, his expression asking if this would be a success. The onmyouji said that if the spirit didn't possess the puppies completely then part of them was still a puppy's mental. Yatsuki just gave a nod and Kiba took a deep breath.

"GROARRR!" Kiba growled more fiercely than a very big dog could. The boy set his face to be as scary as possible. His growl was so loud until the puppies seemed to be blown by a harsh wind.

The puppies silenced. Then they ran, wailing with fright with their tails between their legs. Soon, the front field was empty from puppies.

"I scared them off…" said Kiba as if he didn't expect the thing to happen.

:That's the purpose.: said Hitakuri matter-of-factly.

Kiba landed on his knees then sobbing miserably. "Now those cute little things won't play with me again…"

"Stop being a baby, Kiba-san. Or do you like it better if you had to fight them?" asked Yatsuki.

"No, I don't… but…"

"Then let's go. We can't waste any more time here," said Yatsuki.

"But where are we going?" Kiba asked.

"Uhh…" Yatsuki realized that she hadn't thought that.

:To where the dogs came from, Mistress.: Hitakuri reminded her mistress.

"Oh yeah, where the dogs came from, do you know Kiba-san?" asked Yatsuki.

Kiba pouted, tired answering the same question. "I told you already that they came from my house."

Yatsuki shook her head. "Not that, I mean be specific Kiba-san. From what part of the house they came?"

"It was night already when they attacked me so I think they came from the dogs' house," explained Kiba.

"And where is that?" asked Yatsuki.

Kiba pointed his index finger to the back part of the house. "There, at the back part of the house."

Yatsuki nodded in understand and they quickly went to the dogs' house. It made Yatsuki (and Hitakuri) gaped at the size of the dogs' house that had taken half of the house building. She nearly didn't believe what Kiba said about his family's dogs' house was the biggest one in the fire country and maybe in the world. Yatsuki decided to brush that matter off her mind until her task was done.

They entered the dogs' house and Yatsuki did a brief glance to examine the place. The house was three stories tall, got no rooms, and had some large wooden pillars to support the ceiling. It used electric lamps as the source of light. The wall got random pieces of wooden boards with white cloth or pillow on each, sticking on it. Yatsuki figured that those boards were serving as a sleeping bed for those ninja dogs. And because the dogs were ninjas, jumping from board to board, board to floor, or vice-versa wasn't a trouble for them. Besides, the boards could serve as a training tool.

There were some ropes too, extending at the empty space that supposed to be filled with ceilings/floors. And some of them were tied at the ends of some boards to make the boards suspended in the air. Maybe those suspending boards served as bridges from a side of the walls to another. And on the floor there were scattered straws and some dog bowls/plates, to feed the dogs. Some of dog toys or training tools were caught by Yatsuki's eyes too.

And the brief glance also made her caught the source of the trouble. There, at the center of the room, stood a large pillar, much larger form other pillars and the pillar radiating evil presence.

"Found the culprit," muttered Yatsuki under her breath even though she was sure that the evil spirit had sensed her from the moment she stepped in. she was preparing to attack when Hitakuri shouted a warn to her as one of the fire bird's wings suddenly in front of her, covering her from some flying dog bowls while Kiba quickly get behind a pillar and used it as his shield. The bowls met the wing and pillar then fell down, making clattering sounds filled the large house.

"Who's that! Show yourself coward!" shouted Kiba angrily but instead of words, his question answered by another wave of flying bowls. The boy quickly hid behind the pillar again.

"Kiba-san! What'll happen if the large pillar at the center broke down?" asked Yatsuki. She couldn't risk attacking the pillar with destructive spells recklessly.

"I don't know! It never breaks! But my sister said that this pillar is the main support, so don't ever try to break it!" yelled Kiba to rival the noisy situation.

Yatsuki cursed mentally. Why evil spirits were smart enough to take important places as their residence? "Hitakuri cover me! I'm going to pull that troublemaker out of the pillar!"

:Yes, Mistress.: replied the bird as it used its two wings to provide full protection for its mistress.

Yatsuki threw some paper charms to the large pillar but the papers were deflected by an invisible barrier. Yatsuki cursed again and decided to change the spell she was going to chant.

"On kirikyara harara futaranbaswoha!" she shouted as her hands performed onmyoujitsu hand seals. After the last seal, she pointed the last sealed hands to the pillar and suddenly, a thin layer emerged and rapidly cracked. It was not long until the layer collapsed like fragile glass. Kiba found that the remnants of the barrier did fell to the floor but soon disappear and left nothing.

Yatsuki didn't waste any time. She immediately threw some paper charms to the pillar and continued another chain of spells and hand seals. "Makabodara... Manihandomajin... Parahara paritayanam!"

Suddenly strong winds blew around the room from the pillar. Kiba shielded his eyes by his hands to avoid particles of dusts entering his sensitive organs. When the room was cleared, he could see something glowing yellow and light blue. He squinted at his eyes to see the most handsome wolf he had ever seen. It was as big as a normal tiger and its fur was made of thunder. No, almost all parts of its body were made of fire except its eyes, claw, teeth, and maybe nose. Strangely, the thunder from the wolf's body didn't accidentally burn the straws on the floor but Kiba could feel some jolts of electricity roaming in the air.

He heard a gasp from the onmyouji girl. "The thunder wolf? Impossible! It usually tames and never attacks humans without reason!"

:But Mistress, usually tame or not, it's still a problem! You should seal or calm it: pointed Hitakuri.

"You are right. Rin pyo to sha— AAHH!" Yatsuki screamed in the middle of her chants when a lightning wave managed to get through the wings barrier and strike her. A wave of pain washed through her body and when it stopped, she felt dizzy and could swear that she could smell something burned — maybe her hair or skin that was burned.

:Mistress: shouted Hitakuri as she cursed mentally at her incapability to provide anti-lightning shield for her mistress.

"You bastard!" shouted Kiba as he threw a free from wall wooden board to the wolf after he decided that kunai would do nothing but tickle it. But the wooden board never hit the wolf, let alone harmed it because it suddenly stopped in the mid air. Kiba's eyes went wide as his mind realized that this event was the same with the berserk dogs back then. He immediately and instinctively ducked down to avoid the flying back board. Had he not got an experience with the dogs, his head would have been off of his body.

Kiba cursed mentally as the thunder wolf switched its attention to him. He immediately went to hide himself behind a pillar before a lightning managed to strike him to death. The lightning struck the pillar and made its surface turned as black as charcoal. Yatsuki saw this as an opportunity to attack and she ordered Hitakuri to strike.

"Hikuu!"

Hitakuri lunged towards the wolf. It dodged all lightning wave gracefully. It attacked the wolf with fire balls from its wings. But something strange happened. From the wolf's forehead, a glow emitted and then it drained the fire balls and left nothing.

"What the—" Yatsuki never got a chance to say what she was going to say. The wolf seemed to gain more energy and it got bigger. Now its height was around two until three meters. And needless to say, it got more ferocious.

"You gotta be kidding me!" yelled Kiba to anybody.

Hitakuri was too shocked to dodge a lightning wave that directed to it. The attack jolted it and sent the shikigami to the ground with a loud shriek. It fell with a loud thump, making some dust floated around it.

"Hitakuri!" shouted Yatsuki with worry. She saw the shikigami laid on the floor, beaten and motionless. Slowly, its body started to fade then vanished completely. The shikigami got no power to maintain its form anymore because of the attack.

"You're a sealed spirit," hissed Yatsuki with rage then she began to chant an attacking spell and performed hand seals.

"Noumaku shamandra bastra donkam!" she shouted.

Suddenly, a huge flame appeared under the wolf's body and engulfed it fully until the thunder fur couldn't be sighted anymore. But Yatsuki knew, she was a step too late to be really serious. The same event played again. The fire drained by a strange glow at the wolf's forehead. Now the wolf's size nearly took the whole room. It was as tall as a two stories building but luckily, there's still some room for both of the people to move.

Yatsuki bit her lower lip so hard until it bleed. She wanted to try attack it with another spell but she couldn't risk her power being sucked again. But she didn't run out of idea. She threw her paper charms to the thunder wolf but only to have it destroyed in halfway by the lightning attack.

"You bastard! Take this for hurting my dogs!" shouted Kiba as he jumped towards the dog head with hand ready to punch.

"Wait! Don't act recklessly!" warned Yatsuki.

Too late, the wolf sent an electric jolt and hit Kiba. But suddenly Kiba's body puffed with smoke and replaced by a dog bowl. Yatsuki didn't expect this, so did the dog — apparently.

"What are you looking at, stupid! I'm here!" Kiba's voice sounded from above. Yatsuki and the dog turned their heads up and saw Kiba fell down towards the wolf, ready to attack. The wolf swung its tail to prevent Kiba but once again, Kiba's body turned into a dog bowl. The spirit turned its head to its original position, only to receive a hard punch at the jaw from below by Kiba.

The boy screamed in pain when his knuckle connected with the wolf's jaw. Apparently, the wolf's thunder fur wasn't there for nothing. But despite the pain he got, the shinobi managed to knock the wolf off balance and its body hit the wall. Because of the hit, the building shook a bit. Some sawdust fell from the ceiling because of the shook.

Kiba fell with a loud thud, back first. But he immediately stood up and attacked again, ignoring his hot and achy knuckle. This time he aimed the legs. He used the same tactic again and he managed to knock the wolf's leg until it fell.

"Hey, Miss! I can't do it alone! Help me!" shouted Kiba when he backed away from a lightning strike.

Yatsuki was surprised by Kiba's words. He was right; neither of them could defeat the wolf alone. She had been ignoring for the help Kiba could offer. She was the leader of her team, and how could she forgot about teamwork? Kiba had the ability they need to defeat the wolf: going as near as possible to it.

"Kiba-san!" shouted Yatsuki.

"Yes!" asked Kiba as he dodged some flying boards.

"I know how to defeat it!" said Yatsuki as she took out some blank paper charms.

"Really? How?" asked Kiba with some uneasiness in his voice. He wasn't sure if she really had known the way to defeat the monster in front of him.

"I will hold its movement for a moment so you could get near it!" said Yatsuki as she wiped some blood from her mouth with her thumb then used the blood to draw something on those empty papers.

"Then what should I do when I get near it? You know my strongest punch can't bring it to die!" replied Kiba.

"Take the fragment shaped crystal on its forehead! That's our main problem!" yelled Yatsuki as she run to the place where she could face the wolf's face.

"Why?" asked Kiba when he landed but jumped again to avoid a falling board.

"You can ask later!" Yatsuki threw the paper charms and began to chant before Kiba had the chance to ask another question.

He decided to brush the matter off his head, looking that Yatsuki had begun her part. The paper charms that were thrown began to circle around the wolf. There were five of them. They began to glow and then shooting white ray of light to each other, forming a five pointed star shape and trapping the wolf in it. The wolf struggled furiously but failed.

Knowing this as the right time, Kiba jumped and landed on the dog's head. His rubber shoes prevent him from being electrocuted — for now at least. He used his uninjured hand to grip the said crystal and began to pull it. But the wolf didn't give up yet. It focused all of its power to electrocute Kiba. The boy screamed in pain but he didn't release the grip. The power was so big until Yatsuki had a hard time to maintain her spell. If she had the chance, she would have been amazed by Kiba's will power.

"You… you bastard… after making… me hurting those… dogs… you… harmed their house! I'LL MAKE YOU PAY!" shouted Kiba with rage as he used his injured hand to help the other pulling the crystal. The wolf didn't want to lose. It increased his thunder power by using the crystal power.

Kiba bit his lips from the almost unbearable pain. His hands started to feel weak and the crystal seemed wouldn't let itself go near this time. His mind was blank from the pain. His legs started to feel numb. Maybe… he couldn't make it.

"WOOF!" a bark caught his attention. He tried hard to turn his head and saw his beloved dog—

"AKAMARU!" shouted Kiba, surprised. When did it get out from his jacket? He didn't notice it. It didn't matter now. Akamaru seemed to be a lot braver now, looking that his master was in a grave danger. It landed on Kiba's back and sent its chakra to its master.

"Akamaru, what—" Kiba didn't finish his sentence because he received a bark that answer his unsaid question. Akamaru was ready to help him, by sending its chakra to its master.

Kiba smirked. His confidence was stored now. "All right Akamaru! Let's do it together!"

After yelling that, he used all of his and Akamaru's strength to pull the crystal off. With a last and long cry, he managed to pull the crystal off the wolf's forehead and earning a pained wail from the wolf.

The glowing crystal now was shining brightly. The light was getting brighter and brighter each second, making Kiba closed his eyes to avoid blindness. It was so bright until he could feel warmness at his numb body. He was aware that he was slowly losing his consciousness and that Yatsuki screamed at the top of her lungs so he could hear that she ordered him to let go the crystal. The crystal started to feel hot but his numbed nerves refused to let it go. The last thing he knew was that the light engulfed him…

.oOoOo.

**I am very sorry for the long delay. Fighting the air of vacation is like a battle between life and death. Action is horrible to write. I had never written Kiba in battle. I have to balance between shinobi and onmyouji style of fighting too. And I had a hard time to decide what Kiba and Yatsuki going to do next. I met action block every sentence. I won't say it as writer's block because I have prepared the story's line and plot. **

**Next: To repay its sin, the wolf decided to be Kiba's servant. At the other hand, Fujikaze Yukie, the famous actress and the leader of Ice country decided to visit Konoha after heard about Naruto's condition. Bored and smelled a good chance/challenge, Sasuke disguised as Fujikaze Yukie's bodyguard to enter Konoha… without telling Orochimaru…**

**Scroll 07: Bodyguards**


	7. Scroll 07: Bodyguards

**Scroll 07: Bodyguards**

Yatsuki's teammates stopped fighting when they didn't sense the evil presence from the dogs anymore. But as soon as the dogs back to normal, they heard a loud sound of explosion and another second everything that didn't stick strongly to the ground was blown off to the opposite direction of the sound source.

Every living thing was trying to grip something but not much succeeded. The debris that was flying around didn't help. Everybody could see a tower of light with thunders and lightning emerged from the source of the explosion. The final result of the explosion was another ruined part of Konoha and more injured people.

After the explosion ended, ninjas rushed to the scene. Onmyoujis and ninja dogs followed soon. They found the house wasn't exactly a house anymore. It was turned into a newly made ruin. The ninjas were sure that no one could alive from the explosion, but Yatsuki's teammates' keen onmyouji sense found three very weak life presences. With their keen senses and ninjas powerful strength, they managed to find Kiba, Akamaru, and Yatsuki. They were protected by Yatsuki's barrier.

Tsunade, who was roughly disturbed from her sleep by the damn explosion, arrived at the scene and immediately ordered medical ninjas and doctors to stand by. She sent some investigation teams to look for the cause of the explosion. The first result of the investigation was she got some reports that stated the dogs of Inuzuka family went crazy before the explosion.

She looked at the now rubbles house. She had better find the source of the explosion quickly before the rest of Inuzuka family got back. Not that she feared them, but Inuzukas are mostly contains of hot-headed people. They'd demand answers but didn't give a chance to answer.

She noticed some medical people carried two stretchers with doctors around them. Her keen eyes noticed that Kiba was on one of the stretchers, bloody and bruised. Akamaru was on his chest with no better condition. An unrecognized girl was on the other stretcher but she soon recognized her attire as one of Reigakure's onmyoujis.

They didn't battle with each other, right? The last thing she wanted was a war. Sometimes simple things like this tend to cause a war. She mentally scolded herself. Maybe they had just fought one of the rebels, no need to worry for them fighting at each other! She had been paranoid lately, maybe because the lack of sleep. Being a Hokage reduced her bed time greatly. She knew even the greatest beast like Kyuubi would need sleep. Well, she'd make sure to finish all her paperwork tomorrow and got some sleep before it turned into a mountain.

But before she went home, she had to make sure that Kiba and his dog were alright. She walked to the nearest medical ninja. She appeared to be busy and nearly shrugged the Hokage off which was luckily for her, she noticed that it was the Hokage who greeted her.

"Hokage-sama! I didn't expect it was you!" she nearly shouted in surprise but Tsunade ignored it.

"How are Kiba and his dog?" asked Tsunade.

She appeared to be confused by Tsunade's question for a moment. She didn't know who Kiba was but at the mention of 'his dog' gave her a clue. "Oh, did you mean a boy with spiky hair and a white dog? I can't say he's fine. From a quick check, we figured that he got some fractured bones at his ribs and collarbone, some inner wounds, and some nearly toasted fleshes. He'll live, but if you ask me his chance is slim. I thought he was a half burned corpse when we found him. The dog is no better. It got no fractured bones or some inner wounds but it got worse burn wounds. It would be hard to cure it but it's nothing we couldn't handle."

Tsunade closed her eyes in relief. At least Kiba's and Akamaru's life were not in danger. But to look at the mess… maybe the early sleep was left as a dream.

.oOoOo.

It was night and Sasuke was doing his night patrol. Not that he liked taking orders from Orochimaru, but if it was capable to give him a reason to be as far away as the snake sennin, it was worth to do.

The black haired boy jumped from tree to tree. The cold and chilling breeze was blown over his body. His black cape flapped on his back as his feet made no sound from jumping to landing. Graceful as he was, graceful as he would be.

Suddenly, his sharp sight caught something. He stopped and looked to the sky. The smoke of campfire floating to the sky caught his eyes. His ears caught some noises of people chatting at each other.

Curious, he went to the source and soon, he was greeted by a scene of a large group of travelers set their camp there and having their dinner. From a brief glance he figured that those people were only mere and harmless travelers. Everybody could tell, looking at the way they set a fire carelessly and chatting easily, not realizing that they were in the land of the notorious deadly Sound Village.

Not that they were completely idiot though, they set their camp closely to the border of the village. But still, Sound Ninjas didn't mind for free supplies. Suddenly, his eyes caught something and he turned his head to the thing.

It was a flag. A light blue flag with two white circles those were small and big. He had seen those flags before, nearly three years ago when he and his teammates were given a mission to protect a famous actress who had the role of a princess and ironically turned out to be a real princess. It was the flag of the snow country.

But why would snow country people travel to here? Trading? No. they could've use a sailboat or more to avoid dangerous places. Lost? Maybe, but they seemed too relaxed to be lost. Well, just wondering wouldn't get the answer. It would be fun to test his stealth skill.

He jumped down and landed silently on the ground. He sent a quick glance to the crowd. Everyone was still busy with his/her own business. Good, that meant no one had noticed him.

Suddenly, he heard the bushes moved. He immediately hid himself behind a large tree and wait with a kunai in hand. He heard the rustling sound again and this time it was accompanied by a soft humming. Sasuke let an inaudible sigh. Apparently, it was one of the travelers. He was searching a private place for pee.

The black haired ninja continued his task. The first rule of collecting information is: get it straight from the leader. So he had to find the leader of the travelers and listen carefully like a good boy. People say it's easy to spot the leader's tent because of the bigger size or the prettier look, which is proved to be right.

Sasuke got nearer and nearer to the tent. The tent was much bigger and more luxurious looking, almost resemble a small house. Some people were guarding its entrance. It seemed that the leader was an important person. He didn't want to cause havoc, at least not yet. So when he was near enough, he used a genjutsu technique to the guards.

After made sure that those guards had fallen into genjutsu state, he carefully made his way to the entrance and slipped passed those unnoticing guards. Things were so easy so he kept his senses sharp, incase there was a surprise attack/trap. When he entered the tent, he immediately hid behind a pile of food supplies just before a person looked to the entrance.

He listened carefully to a conversation that held between two men and one woman. It seemed that they were arguing about something.

"—but Hime-sama, you can't carelessly travel to Konoha!" a man with raspy voice protested. It seemed that he was an old man.

_"Hime-sama?"_ thought Sasuke. This fun thing turned to become more and more exciting.

"Just who are you to lecture me, Fukadon-sama? Don't think I don't know about your past times. You used to go travel a lot more carelessly than I!" said the woman they called 'Hime-sama' with an annoyed tone.

Sasuke suddenly figured that the woman's voice was belonged to Fujikaze Yukie or Kazahana Koyuki, the one and only princess/queen of the Ice country.

"I agree with Fukadon-sama, Hime-sama. You're the snow country's only leader and you haven't got any heritage yet! What if something bad happens to you?" asked the other man. This one was younger than Fukadon. From his voice, Sasuke guessed that he's a middle age man with big body.

"I thought it's your job to keep me away from danger, Ragou-sama," said Yukie with menace as she glared the man called Ragou.

Ragou sounded lost. "It's true, but—"

"No buts. Or do you feel incapable to protect me?" Yukie interrupted with an impatience tone.

Ragou was silent for a moment. Then he answered firmly, "No, Hime-sama."

"Hime-sama! You can't do this!" Fukadon protested. Apparently, the old man didn't give up yet.

"I think I just did it," replied Yukie with triumph.

"Hime-sama!" yelled Fukadon, almost in rage.

Yukie slammed her fist to a table. She had lost all of her patience. "Don't 'Hime-sama' me! Do you think it's wrong to visit the ones who saved my life and the Ice country?"

"No, it's not. But Hime-sama—"

"I'm going and you can't stop me, Fukadon-sama! Now, if you excuse me, I need a rest." From the way she spoke, the two men know this was final.

So, Sasuke thought, the queen was going to visit Naruto and Sakura. What's the reason, he'd definitely find out sooner or later. The idea of testing his spying ability was tempting him like a smell of prey tempting a hungry predator. Besides, it had been a long time since he saw Konoha. Who knows if he'd find Itachi there, judging from how persistent his brother in chasing _the thing_ inside Naruto.

Sasuke got up and accidentally knocked large vase-shaped china. He instinctively grabbed the vase to prevent it from falling and creating loud noises. But still, the vase made a sound when he knocked it and it attract the other two men's attention.

Ragou, who was a battle expert with trained senses, immediately put his hand on the handle of his sword and yelled, "Who's there?" while Fukadon formed a protective gesture in front of their queen.

Sasuke's heart skipped a beat. He unconsciously held his breath as he cursed to himself mentally for his carelessness. Not that he feared the Ragou guy, but if he was planning on spying, he better went unnoticed.

Another noise was heard, but this time it wasn't caused by Sasuke. A tiny white thing went passed his and Ragou's eyes. After a moment of silence, Sasuke heard a sigh of relief and Ragou's voice.

"It's only a mouse," he said more to himself.

"See? You're being too paranoid, Ragou-sama," said Yukie with narrow eyes although she didn't deny that she felt some fear and a feeling of being watched back then.

"I think you're right Hime-sama, but this paranoid has saved my life more than once," said Ragou as he kept his eyes to the pile of supplies. His warrior instinct kept telling him that the one that caused the noise wasn't a mouse.

For the first time ever in his life, Sasuke wanted to grab a mouse and kiss it. He used to chase it around the house when he was little then used his kunai to stick it to the wall when he had become a legal shinobi student. But he knew that he couldn't remain here forever. That Ragou guy definitely was going to check his place by the time he got out of the tent. So he quickly thought about it and his brilliant mind found it as quickly as he thought.

His cape is black, so is the large cloth that covered the supplies and luckily with the same strong material. He'd use his cape to cover his whole body and if he mastered the art of "Pretending to be A Thing" enough, he'd seem as still as a stone. Hopefully the Ragou guy was an average warrior that couldn't sense the slightest presence of chakra.

His simple plan turned out to be a success. He did feel the man's eyes on his back for a while, but the warrior didn't stop to check his place more thoroughly. When he was sure that the other man was out of the tent, he silently uncovered his cape and let go the breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

Now he had to think about his next step. He had to find a person, that was close enough for him to watch the queen but far enough to not become suspicious. His mind quickly worked out the solution. The guards. Those stupid guards that was weak enough to fall easily into a genjutsu state. They had to stay close to the queen, but not close enough to catch the queen's attention.

He immediately got out of the tent when the queen turned her back from the entrance. When he got far enough from the tent, he released the genjutsu he had on the guards. He couldn't immediately attack them, it was too risky because the chance that one of the travelers would see one of the guards fall without reason was big. He had to wait for the shift so he would attack the returning guard.

He didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, another two guards came and replaced the old ones position. Sasuke's eyes immediately set to one of the returning guards, the one who had almost the same size of his body. If he was going to wear those samurai fashioned armor, he'd better suit himself.

The lady of the luck was with him. His target was approaching his place, not knowing what awaits him. Sasuke immediately hides himself and wait until the target got as deep as possible in the forest. He listened carefully to the guard's humming so he could imitate his voice.

When the guard stopped, Sasuke acted. He lunged towards the guard, covered the target's mouth, and at the next second he broke the guard's neck. All done without the slightest sound, except the sound of bone breaking. The body went limp and Sasuke let go his hold. The sound of something heavy met the ground went unnoticed by the noisy travelers.

Sasuke quickly stripped all needed garments from the dead body and wore it. He stretched his body to test the flexibility of his movements. Hmm, it was not as bad as he thought. The armor was hard but thin and light. And either because the previous owner was a clean freak or he never engaged himself in battle, the armor was still as good as new.

He looked down and realized once again that there were two problems left: his face and how to hide the corpse. He never thought that he'd use the nastiest disguise technique Orochimaru had ever taught him. Rip the target's face and somehow put it on your face. Just imagine it had damaged his sense of humanity. Actually, it could have been much simpler if he just uses a genjutsu technique to cover his unfamiliar face. But he didn't want to risk being caught by Ragou.

He immediately did his task and went to the soldiers' camp with ironically innocent face. His eyes surveyed the camp to find someone he could ask without risking being caught suspicious. He was too deep in his thought until he didn't notice someone crept behind him and tapped his back.

Sasuke turned around and instinctively pointed the stolen sword to the culprit's face. The person was surprised but managed to grin. He thought Sasuke was joking.

"Wow wow, Oriya. You don't have to point your weapon to everybody who surprises you…" said the person as he tapped the sword tip and lowered it from his face.

He was a nineteen years old male with orange hair and gold eyes. Some of his bangs were long enough to reach his chest. Sasuke had seen him before. He was the other guard who had fallen into his technique beside his dead victim called Oriya.

"Who are you?" asked Sasuke, trying to sound confused than rude.

The orange haired teen made a face that screamed: 'WHAT!' before grabbed Sasuke's shoulder and shook him almost violently.

"Oriya! What's the matter with you? Did you have hit yourself to something?" asked the male worriedly.

As Sasuke tried his best to not stare, the youngest Uchiha replied, "Yeah, kind of. I've slipped and hit the back or my head to a tree when I was dozing off. I think I lost some of my memories…"

The male stared at Sasuke with disbelief. Who wouldn't with the lame and dumb excuse that should not be heard from a soldier?

"Oh, well. Accidents happened. We had been stay still in one place for nearly six hours…" said the male, shrugging off the matter.

_"Oh God, he was a lot dumber than my excuse…"_ thought Sasuke as he fought the urge to sweat-dropped. But he was thankful and decided to brush the matter. "You haven't answered my question…" said Sasuke, reminding the male to tell his name.

"Oh, sorry. My name is Fusume Kuuhei. Nice to meet you again, Oriya…" said Kuuhei with mocking tone.

Sasuke fought the urge to let his jaw dropped. _"FUSUME? Wait, don't tell me he's—"_ "Do you have a sibling or cousin?" asked Sasuke.

Kuuhei lifted his eyebrows. "Why do you ask?"

"I lost my memories so I want to retrieve it…" answered Sasuke matter-of-factly.

"Well, I have one younger sister, her name is Ai," said Kuuhei as he rubbed his chin.

"I know it." Sasuke mumbled so softly until Kuuhei didn't catch what he had said. But the older teen didn't bother to ask.

_"Out of the frying pan, into the oven…"_ thought Sasuke bitterly. It seemed that the Lady of the Fate was against him right now.

"Hey, do you know when our next shifts?" asked Kuuhei, decided to change the topic.

Sasuke shook his head negatively. Kuuhei sighed as if he had expected this kind of answer.

"Well, listen carefully. Our next shift is at this time until dawn tomorrow, so you better get some sleep. Until then, we're to do our usual duty as soldier, such as collecting water, information, or watch the surrounding area. Do you get what I said?" asked Kuuhei.

Sasuke fought the urge to stare. Did _this_ man think that his brain was slow? Wait until he knows what happened to his sister. After confirming where he would stay, he immediately went there to avoid noisy crowds that seemed had endless stamina for party. He was sure that this'll continue until very late night. Well, it wouldn't be his fault if they wouldn't have the energy to continue the journey tomorrow.

He entered the middle sized camp that was enough to hold five people in it. Luckily, there was no one there right now. He'd like to have some privacy to catch up with the current event. He scanned the camp to look for useful things, if those scum that called themselves soldier have that kind of thing.

His eyes fell on a traditional duffle bag that made from strong animal skin. The thing that caught his eyes was the name tag on the duffle bag. The name on it was in kanji words and read as Mitsozuchi Oriya. Without doubt, the bag must be Oriya's.

He walked towards it and opened the bag. Sure the original Oriya wouldn't mind if his privacy was disturbed since he was already dead. He let out some clean clothes (he learned that the original Oriya was a clean freak), a set of sword/knife/armor polisher (that's why all his battling attires were as glistening as Gai's teeth), snacks (for emergency?), soap, shampoo for girls (explains why his hair was very soft and clean), toothbrush & toothpaste, woman's underwear plus bra — hidden within the towel (Oh My God), and finally something worth, a diary.

He opened and scanned it. From what he had found, he guess that Oriya was a clean freak (I had said that once), the run-of-the-mill type (do what your boss said and you're free from trouble), rather girly (shampoo!), a little bit idiot (many parts of diary entries was the days of "torture" from other people or soldier), careless in fight (the diary said that he had failed four times in soldier admittance test because he always swing his attack to the wrong way), idiot and innocent looking but a high level pervert inside (Sasuke had discovered some porn images cut from magazine inside the diary and a complete icha-icha series along with Jiraiya's autograph within the deepest part of the bag) and Sasuke didn't want to imitate him _that_ far.

After cleaning some disgusting and unusable things, the bag was much lighter now. Who would think that icha-icha series are so heavy because of sin? How could it managed to get its way to many bookstores in the world? It was a mystery Sasuke didn't bother to seek the answer.

Something glistening caught his eyes when he got up. He immediately found that it was a round pocket mirror. It was placed near the bag's previous position. He took the mirror and examined his new features.

Hmm, it's not as bad as he had expected. Soft, glossy, and long enough to reach shoulder black hair combined with narrow grey eyes and a little dark skin. The face was a strange combination between childish and punk. He hadn't examined the face carefully because of the forest's darkness back then.

Maybe, Sasuke thought, it wouldn't turn out to be a bad thing after all…

.oOoOo.

Kiba tried to open his eyes but found it was so heavy to lift. His body felt numb but he recognized that it was the painkiller's work. If it wears of, he'd be in great pain. He heard people talked but it sounded so distant and he couldn't catch what they said. But as time went on, the voices became clear.

"Don't worry, he's not in a grave danger anymore…" it was a familiar voice. Hokage-sama?

He heard another voices, it belonged to a woman too, and she sighed before talked, "Thank God. I don't know what we should do if you were not here, Tsunade-sama. He looks so bad already…"

"Don't worry. Didn't I say that he's not as bad as he looks? You should see him when we found him; I thought he was toasted alive…" replied Tsunade.

There was a pause —Kiba thought it was a wince— then the other woman continued, "I don't want to imagine that…"

"I'm sure you don't," said Tsunade.

"When will he awake?"

"Looking at his injuries, maybe a week or two…"

_"A week or two? Do they underestimate me? I'm already awake!"_ Kiba shouted mentally in rage. He knew that he was badly injured but don't try to backtalk him. He forced his eyes to open and pushed his body so he could sit up. But with the damaged ribs of his, he couldn't sit without a groan escape from his lips.

The woman turned and smiled in happiness. "Kiba, you're awake!"

For the first time in his conscious state, he recognized that the woman was his older sister. She was —if not more— as worried as when he came back from his and the others' mission retrieving Sasuke.

"Off course… huff… I'm… awake," Kiba panted. It was so hard to just breathe. His chest felt heavy and he knew he shouldn't wake up. But pride won his decision.

His sister sighed in relief. "Well, if you could sound angry, you're okay I guess…" she said as she pushed her brother back to the bed after his hard attempt to sit up.

Kiba wanted to reply with a doggy growl of protest but he didn't have the chance because someone knocked the door. That's when he completely realized that he was in the hospital.

"Come in!" said Tsunade.

The door cracked open to reveal two people. They're his teammates. Shino and Hinata. The former looked as cool as ever but the later was horrible. It was as if she was Gaara's twin sister with those swollen eyes of her. And her face didn't shine like she used to.

"Umm… sorry to disturb…" Hinata said with an unusually tired voice. It was horrible enough to have a soft voice and now she combined it with the tired one.

Seeing that he had to do something before the girl was tired enough to even breathe, Shino told them their purpose to come here. "We want to know how our teammate is doing over here."

"If you're asking that he would life normally, he will," answered Tsunade with such a simple tone that no such professional doctor would use.

Shino caught what she meant and nodded. Hinata needed a time to digest the Hokage's words before she understand and mumbled a soft 'thank you'.

Tsunade stretched her body. "Well, I think I should save the questions for the next two weeks. Miss Inuzuka, make sure that your little brother won't get out of his bed without a good reason. And Miss Hyuuga…" she turned to Hinata who immediately looked up at the mention of her name. "…get some sleep. Just let Sakura and Shizune take care of Naruto."

Hinata did a weak nod and left with Tsunade's hand on her shoulders. Maybe the Hokage wanted to make sure that there'd be no more patient for her tired body. Shino, after left some medicine made from bugs' poison (eeww..! He won't eat it even if he had to throw his life away!) on the table beside the bed, left the room without another word.

"So, how are you feeling?" asked his sister to fill the silence.

Kiba, with the "NO MUCH TALK" condition, managed to summarize his feelings in one word: "Horrible."

His sister chuckled at his pouting face and he immediately changed it into "that's not funny" expression. Suddenly a thought ran across his brain.

"Sis, where's Akamaru?" asked Kiba with worried voice. It was so much easier to talk when he lay down. He didn't find or smell Akamaru's presence. Being far away from his dog in a long time at the first time made him felt like that there was something missing.

"Don't worry. He's nearly as bad as you, but he's going to be okay. Once he's healthy enough to be moved, the doctors and nurses would move him to here," explained his sister kindly with her rather harsh tone. Almost all of Inuzukas had that harsh voice trait so it didn't hurt him like other people. Make friends with dogs made them a little wild and harsh.

Kiba kept silent for a while. Then he asked another question, "Sis, how's our house?" he knew, with the explosion, the house wouldn't stand. But still, he wanted to know what happened to the other dogs especially the puppies.

He waited but he got no answer. "Sis?" he asked. No answer. He called again but still no answer. He tried to sit up but failed. He fell back to his pillow but he managed to catch a glimpse of his sister sleep on the chair with slumped head. That's strange. His sister or anybody wouldn't sleep in the middle of conversation, unless…

He went alert and let his eyes darted around to spot enemies. And he immediately found someone that he recognized as enemy.

"You!" he wanted to scream, shout, yell, or making loud noises but with this kind of body, he could only hiss.

In front of him, floated the thunder wolf he had fought and win. Did this creature want to take revenge? If yes, he'd surely die. He got weak body and soft voice —wonderful — just the right combination to be called vulnerable.

:Don't worry.: said the wolf, as if its booming voice could assure the boy.

"Don't worry —ouch— about what? About me that won't be able to scream? What have you done to my sister?" asked Kiba sarcastically then threateningly. Surprisingly, the wolf shook its head.

:Your sister is all right I just made her sleep. I just want to apologize.:

"What?" did his ear just fool himself?

:I know that you won't believe me, but I can't just go away before saying my apologize and do something to repay my wrongness.: said the wolf with a sad tone and eyes.

Kiba unconsciously titled his head to the side to visualize his confuse. The wolf caught this and started to explain.

:When I possessed the dogs and attacked you and your village, I… wasn't being myself.:

"What do you mean?" asked Kiba, now even more confused.

:The crystal you pull out from my forehead, it had corrupted me with its great power.: said the wolf.

Kiba frowned and silent for a moment before answered, "Are you trying to say that it wasn't your fault?"

:No, I don't. I should be strong enough to suppress the crystal's power. But I'm not going to admit that it was completely my fault.: said the wolf.

"And do you expect that a half hearted apologize deserves to be forgiven, especially by me, the unluckiest victim?" asked Kiba with an annoyed tone.

The wolf shook his head in disagree. :I don't think so. That's why, I offer you my service.:

Kiba's confused expression turned into horror. Was it he that becoming crazier and crazier or the wolf who becoming more and more insane at the moment?

The wolf forced himself to not sweat-dropped by Kiba's dull brain. :For the simpler meaning, I become your servant.:

Kiba stared the wolf to buy a time to register what it said. "But… why?" asked Kiba.

:I was taught to be responsible for my acts, whether it's done before my will or not. If you reject, I can't forgive myself…: explained the wolf with closed eyes. It thought a moment before added:I'll swear I'll be loyal to you forever.:

"W-wait! You don't have to do that!" gasped Kiba. His fury reduced to a pity. He absolutely sure that the wolf was as guilty as charged, but if it decided to pay its fault by doing that, Kiba honestly hadn't had an iron fist type heart.

"Please, I've hurt your loved ones and nearly killed you. And because of my act I've destroyed your house. If I can't pay for my wrongness, I don't think I can live with the shame I have to bear…: pleaded the wolf.

Kiba sighed. "All right, I'll accept you to be my servant in two conditions."

:May I know what are those: asked the wolf.

"First rule first: don't call me with master, sama, or any other names that indicate high status. For your information, my name is Inuzuka Kiba. You can call me Kiba," explained Kiba with a teacher like tone.

:I think I can live with that.: replied the wolf.

"Second: no secrets between us, that means we should believe in each other," said Kiba with a friendly grin.

The wolf nodded. :Yes, Kiba-san. I understand. Your wish is my order.: it said with a genie-like tone.

"Third," the wolf gaped. There was more? It thought Kiba said he had only two conditions to fulfill? "How do you help me?"

Silence accompanied them for a moment. Then both of them burst out laughing. And the laugh stopped when Kiba groaned in pain and clutched his chest.

:Kiba-san! Are you okay: asked the wolf worriedly.

"Don't worry. I should have known that I can't laugh with broken ribs. By the way what's your name?" asked Kiba.

:I don't have a name, only a high level spirit beast that has a name. A low level spirit beast like me only deserved to be named by my master.: explained the wolf.

"I begin to dislike this master and servant thing. But I can't do anything about it. Okay! Your name is Aoshiki then!" said Kiba cheerfully.

Aoshiki blinked. :Huh:

"Because your color is blue, that's why your name is Aoshiki!" (note: Aoi blue)

The wolf couldn't hold his urge to sweat-dropped now. :Kiba-san…:

Kiba laughed continuously and loudly (this time there was no pain) until he and Aoshiki didn't notice that a pair of blue eyes were watching them…

.oOoOo.

Ai walked across the dim hallway. She had nothing to do now so she decided to look around the place. Suddenly, a man appeared in front of her.

"Kabuto-san, you surprised me…" Ai sighed as she placed her hands on her chest.

Kabuto smiled as he replied, "I'm sorry to surprise you, but have you seen Sasuke?"

Ai shook her head. She saw a flash of disappointment at the silver haired ninja's face before it turned back to his usual cheerful mask.

"Thank you for your answer. Please excuse me, I have to go," after said that, Kabuto vanished with a puff of smoke.

Ai looked at the remaining smoke with blank eyes. When she was back to her room, she saw a black figure was waiting for her at the corner of the room. She smiled warmly as she immediately recognized who was that. The figure's face was covered with his black hood but that didn't prevent her to know who that was.

"How are you feeling?" she asked as she sat down on the bed.

"Horrible," the figure replied with a teenage boy voice. "That Uchiha sure is as rough as his reputation," he said as he rubbed his neck unconsciously.

Ai lifted her eyebrows. "Did he break your neck?" she asked.

"Oh yes he did. I nearly truly died back then. And not only that, he skinned my face when I'm alive!" he grumbled angrily. "If he wasn't an important person, I'd skin and fray him alive!" he continued.

Ai waited patiently to the figure to finish his chain of curse. After he finished, she went to praise him. "But you've acted well. Isn't it satisfying enough to be able to fool him?"

"Oh yes, he fell into our trap easily like a child follow a bad man because of candy bar. That was not satisfying. Moreover, he easily dumped my Icha-Icha collection I worked so hard to get! If Kuuhei hadn't been there, I'd be so dead!" he sobbed.

"Why did he help you? I thought he'd be happy to see you miserable?" asked Ai.

"Well, he was talking to the garbage man, so he unconsciously gave me the time to retrieve my beloved books…" he trailed off.

Ai chuckled. "Just don't let him know that he helped you unconsciously. He'd be so angry and disappointed to himself."

He grinned dreamily. "I bet he will."

"Oriya…" said Ai threateningly.

"Oh, do you have another job for me?" Oriya decided to change the topic.

Ai silenced. She struggled with her own mind before continued. "Go and spy the rebels."

"Why? Did you smell something fishy?" Oriya asked playfully but his gesture was serious. Ai's serious look answered his question.

"Fine. I'll look for it," after that, he vanished like Kabuto did.

Ai laid down to her bed and stared to the ceiling as a long breath escaped her lips. Apparently, her plan wasn't going to be as smooth as she wants.

.oOoOo.

**Scroll seven is finished! (dancing around like a mad man) YAY! Thanks for the one(s) who reviews! I love you all!♥ (especially you, Dragon Man 180! My great reviewer, you saved my life! I worshipped you as the greatest reviewer ever exist in FFnet!) Please don't expect me to update regularly, because Senior High school isn't assweet as people say. **

**Next: In the midst of disaster, Hyuuga Neji was sent to a mysterious island to investigate the death of many shinobi. But what he found was beyond his imagination. Can he escape the island to tell the tale?**

**Scroll 08: The Island of the Iron **


	8. Scroll 08: The Island Of The Iron

**Scroll 08: The Island of the Iron (Part 1)**

Hyuuga Neji was standing in the middle of the empty mission room. He was told to be here this morning to meet the Hokage. Twenty minutes had passed and he didn't even wonder why the Hokage hadn't shown up yet. She was a busy woman, and to be added with the current events, he wouldn't be surprised if she wouldn't show up for another hour. But his expectation was proved to be wrong when he heard the door opened and saw the blonde woman walked in.

She wasn't with her assistant as usual; maybe Shizune was doing things for her when she was giving mission to the Hyuuga. Her face seemed tired and all people knew why. But she managed to sit down calmly and elegantly. There was a pause before she spoke,

"I'm sorry to call you this early and busy morning," she apologized with a tired tone. Neji knew why she apologized. At times like this, villagers were rebuilding their destructed houses and the Hokage thought that she had bothered his house rebuild process by calling him to do a mission or two.

"That's all right, Hokage-sama. They're fine without me," he said, referring to his family.

"If you say so, let's get to the point," her face grew serious, almost completely hid her tiredness, "I want you to investigate an island called Tetsujin near the wave country, at one of the Nami country islands. There have been many reports of missing people that came to the island. Our client just wants you to investigate first. So don't do anything more than that. If you've collected enough information, come back here as soon as possible."

"Yes, I understand," he replied surely and strongly to indicate that he was ready.

"Oh, there's one more thing. Even though this is an investigation, this mission considered to be a class B mission so be careful. Any question?" she asked as her brown eyes stared to his face.

He went silent for a moment to think. His teammates weren't going to join him because their strength was needed for the village. He searched through his brain for something to ask and found it.

"Hokage-sama, is there time limit for this mission?" he watched the Hokage struggled a bit with her own emotion before answering his question.

"I don't want to press you, but our client wants the information at least a week from now. He was worried for his sister's wellbeing," she said as she avoided his gaze by looking to the floor.

Neji nodded silently. As if the Hokage wanted to end this as quickly as possible, she took out a stack of clipped papers from her desk and threw it to Neji who caught it easily.

"You can find the details of the island and its surroundings there. Choose your tools wisely, and prepare yourself for any condition. Now, if you excuse me, I have to leave now." Without waiting for Neji's answer, she left.

Neji glanced at the front page. There was a picture of Tetsujin Island that was taken from the sea and the picture of its beach. The island sure was not the look-horrible-don't-get-near-or-you-will-be-eaten-ALIVE type. In fact, it was beautiful. From far away, at least.

He flipped the page and found the island's description. Tetsujin Island was well-known for its metal resources. It produced the best metal for weaponry and armory. The owner was Kinjiya Hayame, the rich boy who have electronic tools factory. The strong and stubborn radios they used to communicate with each other at missions were bought from his factory and they weren't cheap. No wonder why the boy owns an island full of metal mine.

He flipped some page and found the missing people's file. Almost all of them were fishermen and miners, last spotted at the sea near the island or at the beach. Except for one woman with long chocolate brown hair that was braided into three braids with green eyes decorated her beautiful cream colored face.

Apparently, she was the client's sister. She ran away from home and ended up missing. She last spotted near the island so the client presumed that she was missing like other fishermen and miners. He flipped the papers to the last page and found the client's information.

His name is Kosomaru Futaba. The boy has cat-like green eyes and long black hair with silver bangs. The hair was long enough to be tied into small ponytail. He appeared to be a naughty boy who gives trouble to his older sister. Neji wouldn't be surprised if one of his sister's reasons to run away from home was him.

After he packed his things (many shinobi would need binoculars to spy but for him it was a useless weight) he immediately set off.

.oOoOo.

_"What have I gotten myself into?"_ asked Futaba mentally. He was sitting on a big log of a tree, near the houses at the small fishermen village. His reason to be here was more than one. First, he was waiting for the leaf shinobi he and the villagers hired and second he was here because of the escaped captive named Arsunta. He really didn't want to do this, but…

_flashback_

_"You want me to— what?" he asked with an unbelieving tone. _

_"I want you to retrieve Arsunta," his teacher, Koetami, repeated for him._

_"B-but! Why I have to disguise as a villager and hire a ninja?" he asked as he hoped his teacher would give an acceptable answer. _

_"Did you forget? Arsunta was a ninja. A great kunoichi if what I heard is right. We never fought a ninja before so it'll be useful to have one or more ninjas around. Beside, you've to disguise as a villager and request for other missing people so that you're less suspicious-looking," said Koetami, matter-of-factly. _

_He sighed as he figured that his teacher was right. They've heard about ninjas but they've never fought one. "And why me?" he asked again. _

_To his surprise and anger, Miyabi was the one who answered his question. "Because you're a good liar; the most skillful one we've ever met."_

_"Oh, shut up ice cream man. Your complimentary doesn't make me feel happy," he grumbled like an angry wolf. _

_"Why should I listen to you, catty boy?" Miyabi replied with a fake hurt tone. It was clear that he was teasing him. _

_"My cat-like eyes don't guarantee that I have cat elements! Mind your own business, ice cream man!" he said furiously. _

_"I should be the one who said that!" Miyabi yelled. He could yell louder if his wounds didn't stand in the way._

_Before the fight could continue further, Koetami butted in. "Now Futaba. Leave **now** and do what I said to you."_

_"Yes, Rikuchi-sensei…"_

_end flashback_

"Eeehh…" groaned Futaba as the memory repeated over and over again in his head. Normally, Miyabi would have been the one who was sent to a mission like this. But since the said teen was gravely injured, he was the one who took the worst effect.

Damn it! It didn't take a moron to realize that Rikuchi-sensei was aware of his capability that exceed Miyabi's and other students. But why did she send him despite the fact that—

"Excuse me," a male voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked up and saw a teenage boy in his age was standing in front of him. The teen's shadow loomed over his body. Futaba looked to the eyes and surprised to find a pair of white and blank eyes. He had never seen such eyes before. They promised a cold and fast death for those who trespass him.

"Yes?" he asked as he cautiously examined the other teen's features. Long brownish hair, a forehead protector with a leaf symbol engraved on it, and ninja attire. Even a turtle would realize that the teen was a ninja, a very skillful one according to Futaba's fighter instinct. Could he be—?

"Are you Kosomaru Futaba?" he asked with his cold voice.

Futaba nodded. "Yes, I am. And you must be the ninja the villagers and I hired."

The teen nodded. "My name is Hyuuga Neji. I'm a jounin ranked shinobi from the Konoha village. I come to this village as you requested. Pleased to meet you," said the teen named Neji as he bowed with respect. There goes the formality.

"Pleased to meet you too," said Futaba after hesitating a bit. After he said that, neither he nor Neji talk. They were searching for words to say. Finally, Neji broke the silence.

"So? Should we go to the island?" asked Neji.

"Umm, yeah. We can go to the island with my boat," _"Well, my rented boat,"_ he added in his mind. "Let's go," he continued then.

When they were walking, Futaba could feel Neji's eyes were staring at him intently. _"Why is he staring to me?"_ asked him mentally as all his hair on the back of his neck stood up.

When they arrived at the wooden boat, Futaba began to think of how he operates the machine. He was taught how to do it recently but the ninja's presence made all of it slipped out of his mind. _"Come on, all you need is just to pull the wire,"_ the man in his memory said.

"Yeah, just pull it," he mumbled so softly until Neji didn't hear him. He clumsily pulled the wire over and over again without success. Seeing the fruitless effort and didn't have the patience, Neji decided to help.

"Do you need help?" and without waiting for the answer, Neji took the wire and pull it with his power. The motor made some weird noise before started. Now, the grumbling noise of the motor filled the place.

Neji turned to him. "You know how to drive a boat, do you?" the ninja asked.

Futaba was taken aback by this question. "Why did you ask?" he replied without answering Neji's question.

"Because you look as if you've just touched this machine recently…" Neji answered.

For one thing Futaba had to take a note to, never underestimate a ninja's observing skill. He found that lying wasn't going to help him so he decided to tell a good half lie.

"Well, I usually drive a sailboat. My sister is the one who uses the motor boat," he said half lying half true. It was true that he could drive a sailboat. Well, all onmyouji have to master that skill. The problem was, in Reigakure there was no all sorts of machine.

Neji examine the teen in front of him as the wind blew his hair. His byakugan found something strange about the boy's chakra flow. The chakra didn't flow in chakra way. The chakra took wire shapes and waves around his body that made the boy looked like he was wearing a transparent haired ape costume.

"Is there something wrong?" the green-eyed teen suddenly asked. His expression seemed to be asking: 'is there any rice on my face?'

Neji shook his head. "No. I was just thinking of how long until we reach the island." He lied, of course.

Futaba looked to be relieved. Neji bet the boy had been having Goosebumps because somehow many people found that his stare is sometimes gives spooky feelings, though it wasn't like he didn't know the cause.

"Well, it should be fifteen minutes until we could step our legs to the island," Futaba answered with a much relieved tone. They were silent for a minute before Neji decided to say something.

"Are you scared of me?" he asked.

"Huh?" the green eyed boy was surprised. It was a short moment before he answered, "Um… yes a little. Ah, no, I think I'm just uncomfortable around you, that all."

"You don't have to lie," said Neji calmly. He was used to the people's behavior that fear and respect him.

"What makes you know I'm lying or not?" the boy asked coldly. Neji was a bit surprised by the tone. He didn't expect such a cold voice would come out from the boy's mouth. "My teacher said that I shall not judge people by its appearance. Don't think that you're so great until all people feared you. I've just known you, so it'll make sense that I'm just uncomfortable around you, won't it?" asked Futaba.

"I'm sorry." After he spoke his apology, they were silent for the rest of the trip.

Neji immediately hopped off the boat when they were arrived at Tetsujin Island. But just when he was going to leap off, he noticed that Futaba was off from the boat too.

"What are you doing?" Neji turned and asked.

Futaba switched his attention from the rope he was holding to Neji. "As you see, I'm tying the boat, so it wouldn't loose to the sea when we leave it."

"What do you mean by 'when we leave it'?" the ninja asked as he narrowed his eyes. This boy wasn't planning to do something foolish, was he?

"What are you talking about? Of course I'll follow you. Do you expect me to leave you alone in this island and sitting like a useless duck when probably my sister is in danger?" asked Futaba as he became more and more believed Miyabi's words about him being the greatest liar the older boy had ever met.

"Do you think I would let my client face danger? I thought you rent my skill so you won't have to increase the missing people number!" he was confused. Very confused. Why this guy went all the trouble to pay a ninja when he was planning to go himself?

"Look, don't ever compare me to those cowards at the village. That phrase may goes well with them, but not to me! I pay you so I'll have you to help me find my sister!" Futaba said as he placed a hand on his hip, while his brows were furrowed to express his anger.

Neji held the will to sigh. He knew he won't win this, because even if he sent the boy back to the village, the boy would come back here again. And he certainly couldn't let the boy wandering alone in this mystery island, since Futaba appeared to be not the type who would wait. He had no option left except letting the boy followed him.

"Fine. But I won't be responsible if you're injured or dead. My job is to investigate this island, not protecting my client," said Neji plainly. He expected that Futaba was going to be scarred by the lack of protection and go back to the village. But he was wrong.

"That's fine with me. I can take care myself," the green-eyed boy said confidently. My God, Futaba never ceased Neji's amazement of his stupidity.

"Don't say I don't warn you," Neji tried persuading the boy again. But he met a big negative.

"Nonsense. I'm a manly man who's strong enough to not blame people for my own mistakes. (_Yeah, a strong-headed boy who thinks he's adult already when he doesn't have a good beard like Asuma-sensei_, thought Neji) Besides," his gaze hardened, "rather than arguing uselessly, should we get going?"

Neji didn't bother to say anything more, he just nodded. He waited until Futaba finished tying his boat which didn't take so long at all. While the boy was doing his job, Neji found a question that he couldn't find the answer. He stared at Futaba so long, calculating the boy's moves to get his answer, even until Futaba finished his job.

"What are you looking at?" Futaba asked menacingly when he (again) felt Neji's eyes on him. Both of the boys thanked mentally that either of them got different gender. One would be uncomfortable and the other would have the pervert image.

"I was just wondering," Neji said calmly, even after he was caught staring for the second time, "can you cope up with my speed?" he put his hand under his chin as he examined the boy's lack of muscles body, "I don't have any intend to insult you, but as you see, I'm a ninja and you're not. Or maybe I'm wrong?" he quickly added when he saw Futaba's annoyed face.

Neji remained calm expressionless even though the other boy's face screaming: 'what does he think I am?' and the gestures that kept telling him that one wrong move would make the harmless looking boy slit his throat with bare arms. He learned one thing though; this boy had a sensitive case concerning his pride.

"I don't know your standard, but I'm the fastest traveler around my age in the village," Futaba snorted as he mentally snickered and insulted himself, _"Yeah, a big fat liar with fast legs. What a reputation to hold."_

"If you say so — don't bother to shout when you can't follow me," Neji said. Then he immediately jumped to the forest and lost from Futaba's sight before the later could say something.

"How could I shout if he was out of sight in a few seconds?" Futaba grumbled. But it was no mater. He could and would catch up with the shinobi in mater of seconds too. Without wasting more time he followed Neji.

Both of them unaware of the fact that there was someone who watched them from the time they set foot on the island…

.oOoOo.

Neji run through the dense forest as he used his byakugan to look around and sometimes focused to some place behind him. Futaba hadn't shown up yet. Maybe it was a bad idea to immediately jump out of the scene. But it appeared that he was wrong.

He saw a small black dot behind him that slowly but surely grew bigger and imitating human shape. It wasn't long until he recognized that the dot was a familiar boy; a very angry Kosomaru Futaba to be exact.

Neji saw the boy's mouth was trying to say something along the trail: "Hey, wait!" and he immediately stopped and wait for the boy.

When the green-eyed boy finally reached his place, Neji could see that he was panting lightly. He decided that the flush at the boy's cheeks was caused by anger and heat.

"Why did you stop?" the boy asked with a clear annoyed tone.

Neji was confused. What was this boy want actually? "You told me to wait, so I wait for you."

"I said: slow down! Not stop!" Futaba yelled.

Oh my God. This boy was really tearing his nerves. He mentally thanked to whoever was up there about his patience's denseness gift.

"Whatever," he grumbled. He recently decided that if he argued more, his patience was going to grow thinner and thinner.

"Don't just whatever me! Where are you going, anyway?" Futaba asked.

"A high place," Neji answered simply.

Now it was Futaba's turn to be confused. "Huh?"

"I want to have a good view of the island. The first step of investigating searching somebody is: getting familiar to the area then calculates the possibilities. That way, we don't need to comb every leaf to find our target," he explained it as simple as possible.

Futaba nodded in understand. Don't blame him for didn't understand the situation. Usually, he would use his shikigami to search somebody or something but in this mission, ninja rules.

They continued the journey without much more hassle. From his observation, Neji found that the forest was so silent. No wild animals, beast, or whatever. He expected there would be at least a snake but he found none. Not that he wanted to face those beasts, but from his experience, a place that was too silent usually hiding troubles.

When they reached a high place, Neji immediately used his byakugan. He didn't notice that Futaba was trying to communicate with the forest spirits.

"I saw a cave. Should we start searching there?" the Hyuuga asked — unintentionally broke Futaba's concentration.

"Huh—? Umm… yeah. A place good start," stuttered the boy.

Neji paid no heed to the boy's surprise and immediately started to run again. Futaba followed and they were silent again in the rest of the journey. After a while, they finally reached the cave. Mining tools were scattered around, indicating that the cave was a mine. From the brief examination, Neji and Futaba felt something strange. The tools weren't left behind. It was as if the users vanished at the moment they used or carry the tools.

Futaba narrowed his eyes into slits. Strange, he couldn't detect any spirit presence. It was as if something blocked his sense.

They wasted no time to argument and entered the cave. After a moment, they found that the cave was quite simple. They only need to follow the railway and they wouldn't meet a dead end. But all of the easiness didn't last long.

They found a large gap that separated the way and blocked their movements. The gap was large until a great shinobi like Neji was forced to admit that he couldn't jump over the gap. Futaba kicked a rock into the gap to examine the gap's depth and they found it was a long time before it hit the ground. Surely it would be hurt if they fall.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Futaba asked.

Without answering, Neji took off his backpack and opened it. He inserted his hand and took out a bundle of thick ropes. The Hyuuga thanked mentally that he was a calculative person. He tied one of its ends with a large hook and prepared to throw it.

Futaba watched the ninja did his action with curiosity gleamed in his eyes. He heard that ninjas' levels of physical abilities are above them. Surely throwing something from far away was a simple task for them.

As he expected, Neji succeeded in one try. The hook stuck on one of the wooden logs that supported the cave. Neji pulled it to check its strength before tied the other end to another wooden log.

"Well, who goes first?" he asked.

Futaba shot him a glare that yelled: "Should you ask? Of course it'll be you!" and upon seeing this, Neji replied immediately with a "Fine, I will" look.

The shinobi walked across the rope bridge without any difficulties. When he reached the other side, with his byakugan he could see that Futaba was battling with himself between the "I won't walk across this dangerous bridge" and the "I should walk across so I can continue" choice.

Neji decided that he should push Futaba. Futaba was like Kiba or Naruto that didn't accept insults to his skill. So it wouldn't hurt to try his theory.

"What take you so long? Are you afraid?" Neji asked. His words echoed in both cave and Futaba's ears. The other boy's brows twitched in anger.

"HELL NOT! I WAS JUST PREPARING MYSELF!" Futaba shouted so loud until Neji sure that the shout could be heard at every corner of the island.

Even though he shouted that, inside, he was cowering with fear. In Reigakure, there was no training like this. He was taught to cross sea using a rope but not crossing a gap using only one rope. Again, he can use his shikigami. But he would blow his cover if he used one of his onmyoujitsu skills.

He took a long and deep breath before mentally swearing to himself, _"Okay, what I need to do is walking with a great sense of balance and NEVER look down or I'll reach the end of my life. Yes, that's all. You can do it Futaba! Calm yourself! They surely called you as one of the best students not for nothing!"_

After a moment of steeling himself, he began to step on the rope. The thing bent down, making Futaba gulped. It was as if he stepped on a sand eating terrain. He kept his eyes focused to the other side or Neji's eyes as he began to walk.

Futaba was doing well until both of them heard a loud noise that resembled a firework explosion noise. The green eyed boy felt something buzzing behind his back while Neji saw something flew straight to the rope behind the other boy.

Before anybody could realize what it was, Futaba fell. His fall wasn't cause by lost of balance. The rope was severed, that was the cause.

Neji immediately react. He jumped to catch Futaba and succeed. But he didn't succeed catching one of the two rope parts. They fell down quickly like steel being pulled by magnet. Their bodies felt like floating but their mind kept telling them that they were in a grave danger if they don't react quickly.

While Neji was busy thinking quickly about problem resolve, Futaba instinctively draw something in the air and did hand seals. He didn't and couldn't think about his disguise anymore. What his main concern was how to prevent his dead.

Neji noticed that Futaba was mumbling strange words. His eyes found that the hands of the other boy had formed a strange seal. Before he had the time to think, Futaba shouted the last words of his chain of spell in their language.

"Form a net of ivy o Spirit of Forest!"

For a moment nothing happened. Then Neji heard grumbling sound and the next second ivies sprouted from the hard earth wall and formed a net like thing to stop their fall. They landed comfortably on the net and were stunned from the recent event especially Neji who had just witnessed Futaba's onmyouji skill.

They were silent for a moment before Neji spoke, "What… have you done?" He managed to breathe that question instead 'what had just happened?' question.

Futaba realized that he had just blown off his cover. _"Oh, crap,"_ he mentally cursed.

.oOoOo.

**It's done -whew!- being a Senior high school student means doing a suicide to your imagination and your will to write. This chapter is being shorter than I want but if I don't update sooner you'll forget my story. Maybe I had to make the chapters short so I could update more regularly.**

**Be nice reviewer, please — and sorry if my story is bad. Gotta go and work with my geography homework. **


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